– Oscar De La Hoya has decided not to use Floyd Mayweather Sr as his trainer against Floyd Mayweather Jr and will use the services of Freddie Roach. Mayweather Sr has been training De La Hoya since 2001 but his asking price of $2 million was too much for Oscar to go along with. De La Hoya offered $500,000 to Senior for training camp and another $500,000 if he wins. Considering Oscar is slated to make over $20 million for this fight, the elder Mayweather’s asking price is not unreasonable. Financial terms reached with Roach, Manny Pacquiao’s trainer, were not released.
– Staying with the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight, the pay-per-view scheduled for May 5th is rumored to be offered for $54.95. That is $5 above HBO PPV’s usual offering of $49.95 for pay-per-views. Tickets for the live event sold out in three hours and it is expected to break the live gate record set by Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.
– Former lightweight and super featherweight world champion Acelino Freitas is returning to the ring. Freitas announced his retirement in October of 2006 because he wanted to concentrate on training young fighters in his native Brazil. Freitas was talking comeback less than one month later and now has officially signed on to fight current lightweight champion Joel Casamayor. Freitas already holds one victory over Casamayor.
– Calvin Brock has hired Hall of Fame boxer Pernell Whitaker as his trainer. Brock suffered his first loss as a professional last November, getting knocked out by Wladimir Klitschko. Whitaker was once the pound-for-pound king of boxing but hasn’t had a lot of experience as a trainer. He does, however, have a good mind for boxing so it will be interesting to see how this partnership works out.
– Johnny Tapia will end his 20-year boxing career later this month. Tapia is a former world champion in both the super flyweight and bantamweight divisions. He’s known as much for his troubled life out of the ring as he is for his ferocity inside of it. His final fight is scheduled for February 23rd in Tapia’s hometown of Albuquerque, NM. Tapia, 55-5-2 (28 KOs), will face Ilido Julio, a loser in his last four fights.
– This upcoming month is full of exciting fights. I present to you the February fight schedule.
Feb 3 – Tomasz Adamek vs. Chad Dawson WBC Light Heavyweight Title (Showtime)
Feb 3 – Jesus Chavez vs. Julio Diaz IBF Lightweight Title (Showtime)
Feb 3 – Cory Spinks vs. Rodney Jones IBF Light Middleweight Title (Showtime)
Feb 9 – Rocky Juarez vs. Emmanuel Lucero (Telefutura)
Feb 10 – Shane Mosley vs. Luis Collazo WBC Welterweight Title (HBO)
Feb 10 – Vivian Harris vs. Juan Lazcano (HBO)
Feb 17 – Paul Malignaggi vs. Edner Cherry (HBO)
Feb 17 – Sechew Powell vs. Ishe Smith (HBO)
Feb 17 – Andre Berto vs. Ben Tackie (HBO)
