ESPN‘s Dan Rafael fills us in on four big fights in boxing that are in the works, three of which have been confirmed. From his Notebook:
– The fight that is merely rumor now is Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao. De La Hoya has only one fight left in him and with the retirement of Floyd Mayweather Jr, the “superfight” opponents are few and far between. Negotiations are going on for this fight but a lot depends on the result of next week’s fight between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. If Cotto wins, he could find himself as Oscar’s opponent for his last fight. Oscar’s last fight will be on December 6th in Las Vegas. If it is Pacquiao, the fight will be at 147 pounds, according to Pacquiao promoter Bob Arum. Pacquiao just made his debut at 135 lbs so the jump would be significant. De La Hoya hasn’t fought at 147 lbs since 2001 but he did weigh in at 150 lbs in his last fight against Steve Forbes.
– Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik will fight former middleweight king Bernard Hopkins. Ironically, they will fight at a catchweight ten pounds over the 160 lb middleweight limit. The bout is set for HBO PPV on October 18th in Atlantic City, NJ. This marks the second of three fights for Kelly Pavlik that have come outside of the middleweight division since becoming the middleweight champion. Defend your belt Kelly. Don’t fight old boring fighters.
– Shane Mosley fights Ricardo Mayorga on September 27th. The good news is that the fight will be on HBO. It was originally scheduled for a pay-per-view date on October 11th but that was retracted after the Pavlik-Hopkins announcement. As Dan Rafael points out, Showtime has a strong card on October 11th so moving off of PPV and to another date is great for boxing fans.
– Showtime’s strong October 11th card is headlined by a light heavyweight title bout between Antonio Tarver and Chad Dawson. This fight has been rumored for a long time so it’s good to see this come to fruition because there really wasn’t another fight to make in the division. Also on the card will heavyweights Sam Peter and Vitali Klitschko. That is assuming Vitali doesn’t get injured during training. That is a very big assumption.
