By Norm Frauenheim

LAS VEGAS – Oscar De La Hoya, founder of Golden Boy Promotions, said he is fighting for his company and that he doesn’t want to fire his CEO, Richard Schaefer.

“Look, nobody is going to dismiss Richard,’’ De La Hoya said Saturday during a news conference before the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Marcos Maidana fight at the MGM Grand. “I don’t want him to leave.’’

But De La Hoya could not be certain that he won’t. He was asked whether the relationship could be healed.

“I don’t know,’’ he said.

De La Hoya conceded that he had alternate plans if he and Schaefer are unable to end a feud that has disrupted their business.

“I have a Plan B, C and D,’’ said De La Hoya, who hired Schaefer, a former Swiss banker to run the promotional company that is named for him. “I found Richard from the banking world to help me out. I can do that again.’’

The De La Hoya-Schaefer feud is marked by disagreement over whether to have any sort of relationship with rival Bob Arum, De La Hoya’s primary promoter throughout his Hall of Fame career. Schaefer has vowed to never do business with Arum again. De La Hoya visited Arum Thursday at the Top Rank promoter’s home in Los Angeles.

De La Hoya said he only wanted “to bury the hatchet” with Arum. He said no business was discussed. However, De La Hoya did not rule out the possibility that business might be discussed if there is another meeting with Arum.

Another issue involves questions about how many fighters are under contract to Mayweather advisor Al Haymon instead of Golden Boy Promotions. Schaefer has developed a close working relationship with Haymon and Mayweather. Schaefer has said that some fighters have contracts with Haymon and not Golden Boy.

“I don’t have the number,’’ De La Hoya said.

De La Hoya said he hoped to talk to Schaefer about the issues that divide them

“Like Richard said, here are a few things we are not agreeing on,’’ he said. “But it’s nothing that can’t be worked out.’’

“I said what I had to say and I stand by those statements,’’ Schaefer said. “Whatever the future holds, hopefully, we can have this resolved within the next couple of weeks.”

It is believed that De La Hoya reached out to Arum as part of his rehab from substance abuse. De La Hoya went into rehab last September before Mayweather’s victory over Canelo Alvarez.

“Bottom line, I was not well,’’ De La Hoya said. I got caught up in stuff. I was down and out. I really was. Right now, I want to be the real Golden Boy. This company is named Golden Boy for a reason. This is the fight of my life right now. I can win. I know I can.’’

By Norm Frauenheim–

LAS VEGAS – The Golden Boy Promotions divide between CEO Richard Schaefer and founder Oscar De La Hoya appeared to widen Thursday with comments from Bernard Hopkins, who supports Schaefer’s vow to never to do business with Bob Arum despite De La Hoya’s attempt at renewing a working relationship with the Top Rank promoter.

“We don’t need Bob Arum,’’ Hopkins said after a news conference for the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Marcos Maidana undercard Saturday night at the MGM Grand.

Hopkins, a Golden Boy vice-president, had a lot more to say. When does he not? But he was careful not to comment on whether there was a chance at healing the De La Hoya-Schaefer rift. He said he has a commercial interest in the company’s future. But he said he wouldn’t talk about their reported differences.

“When I was training for Beibut Shumenov, I’d hear this and I’d hear that,’’ said Hopkins, who won another piece of the light-heavyweight title with a unanimous decision over Shumenov a couple of weeks ago. “I’m not going to comment about things I don’t know about because that makes things worse.’’

But the argument about Arum is no rumor. De La Hoya is on record about wanting to resume business with his former promoter. There’s even talk that he approached Arum with a proposal for a Canelo Alvarez fight against the Arum-promoted Manny Pacquiao. De La Hoya’s attempt to make peace with Arum has been a step in the healing process since his release from rehab.

But Schaefer is also on record about Arum. Business between the two is over, said Schaefer, whose alliance with Mayweather and his advisor, Al Haymon, appears stronger than ever. Forget business. There’s a sense that the Schaefer and Arum couldn’t even be civil to each other.

“There is so much on and off with Top Rank that Richard Schaefer has had with Arum that the relationship will never be patched up,’’ Hopkins said. “Not in this lifetime, I don’t think. It’s not just the name-calling. If it was just the name-calling, I think they could get back together. It’s the lawsuits. Then, it’s ‘we agree,’ and then ‘don’t agree.’ It’s the emotional roller coaster, again and again. I just think it’s become a worn-out soap opera.’’

If the respective positions have hardened on Arum, any chance at peace between Schaefer and De La Hoya are dim and getting dimmer. De La Hoya has not commented on the situation since the week-long build-up for Mayweather-Maidana began on Tuesday. His absence was notable at news conferences Wednesday and again Thursday.

No Golden Boy-Top Rank alliance, of course, means the most-talked-about fight of the last four years will never happen. No real news there. Pacquiao-Mayweather will go the way of Riddick Bowe-Lennox Lewis. Trouble is, the lost opportunity will take a lot of fans with it.

“We blew that opportunity,’’ Hopkins said. “We lost what would have been the Super Bowl of boxing. It’s like not having Ali-Frazier. The moment was there three, four years ago. But I think people have gotten past it.’’

For Hopkins, it was another way of saying it’s time to move on. It’s beginning to look as if Schaefer and De La Hoya will do exactly that.

Mayweather post stirs up controversy
Mayweather created a predictable buzz early Thursday by alleging that his former fiance, Shantel Jackson, aborted their two twins because he is pro-life.

Mayweather posted what he said was a photo of her sonogram on his Facebook account with this message: “The real reason me and Shantel Christine Jackson @missjackson broke up was because she got a abortion, and I’m totally against killing babies. She killed our twin babies.#ShantelJackson#FloydMayweather#TheMoneyTeam#TMT.

The post was taken down later in the day, apparently because of the furor it caused..

Notes: If Amir Khan beats Luis Collazo Saturday night, there’s talk that Khan will get a September shot at Mayweather, a one-sided favorite over Maidana. But Khan said he could not fight in a mid-September bout that coincides with a celebration Mexican Independence (Sept. 16) because of the Muslim observance of Ramadan. Khan is a practicing Muslim. …Adrien Broner took the podium Thursday and said that he was a changed man before his fight with Carlos Molina, his first bout since losing to Maidana in in December. “I’m humble, I don’t trash talk no more,’’ the bearded Broner said. Then, the real Broner appeared. “Get the hell out of here,’’ he said after a pause. “…At the end of the day, we’ve got to get back to business.’’ Yeah, the trash-talking business.

LOS ANGELES (April 29) – While still actively promoting the sport he loves, boxing great and President of Golden Boy Promotions Oscar De La Hoya also wants to throw his hat into a different arena, making it known Tuesday night of his desire to own a piece of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers franchise.

“The league has made it known that it wants more minorities involved, and as a proud Mexican-American, I will bring a different perspective to the NBA in general, and the Clippers in particular,” said De La Hoya. “I was born and raised in Los Angeles, I know what it takes to run a successful sports entity and nothing would make me happier than to bring an NBA Championship home to Southern California sports fans.”

A 1992 U.S. Olympic Gold medalist, East LA’s De La Hoya went on to a storied professional boxing career that earned him a place in the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2014. In addition, De La Hoya founded and built Golden Boy Promotions into boxing’s premier promotional company. However, he has his sights set on more, and if he becomes an owner of the Clippers, he will join fellow 1992 Olympic Gold medalists Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan as athletes turned professional sports team owners.

Continued, De La Hoya, “I applaud NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for his quick and decisive action regarding in the Donald Sterling situation, and his forward thinking will push the league toward a positive future. There is no room for racism and unfair treatment in any professional sport, or in life in general. I hope to be a part of positive change for the league.”

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com , follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing and become a fan on Facebook at Golden Boy Facebook Page and visit us on Instagram @GoldenBoyBoxing.

Three of the most popular fighters of the past decade, Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad and Joe Calzaghe will highlight the 2014 Hall of Fame class that will be enshrined in Canastota, New York on June 8th.

“I am honored and appreciative to be chosen for the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Class of 2014 and I thank everyone who has been a part of this journey with me,” said De La Hoya, who has struggled with substance abuse issues during retirement but also founded Golden Boy Promotions, one of the leading promotional companies in the world.

“This is the dream of everyone who puts on a pair of gloves and steps between the ropes, and through the good and the bad, you always hope that when all is said and done, you put on good fights, entertained the fans and will be remembered for what you did in the ring. To know that I will be in the Hall of Fame with the greats of this sport is humbling, but it’s also put a smile on my face that isn’t coming off anytime soon.”

“This is tremendous news. I’ve spent many years in boxing, and I am very happy,” Trinidad said. “This is a great honor for me, my father [and trainer, Felix Trinidad Sr.], my family and my whole team. I’m extremely happy to be inducted with all the Puerto Rican boxers already in the Hall of Fame. This is the biggest triumph in my career.”

“I’m so excited. I’m very proud and humbled,” Calzaghe said. “I think it’s amazing to be inducted. This is a massive, massive honor, just fantastic. To receive this honor and be up there with all the legends is the ultimate honor for me. I’m so happy right now, and I can’t wait to come to Canastota.”

They will be enshrined June 8 during the 25th annual inductions ceremony at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y. Also elected were British promoter Barry Hearn and referee Richard Steele in the nonparticipant category, journalist Graham Houston and photographer Neil Leifer in the observer category, George Chaney, Charles Ledoux and Mike O’Dowd in the old-timers category and Tom Allen in the pioneer category.

Los Angeles (September 10) – Canelo Alvarez and I have big fights coming up this weekend. His is the ring and mine in treatment.

I will not be at the fight this Saturday to cheer Canelo to victory since I have voluntarily admitted myself into a treatment facility.

I explained this to Canelo and he understood that my health and longterm recovery from my disease must come first.

Thank you for your understanding. I ask for your support and privacy during this difficult time for me and my family.

LOS ANGELES — August 28, 2013 — The De La Hoya family will soon add another professional boxer to its ranks, as Diego De La Hoya signs with JDLHmgmnt in advance of his professional debut on September 12th in Las Vegas. His debut is the culmination of an accomplished amateur career, having had over 250 amateur bouts, and winning a silver medal in the Mexican Olympic Nationals. Diego follows in the footsteps of his cousin, “Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya.

Diego narrowly missed the opportunity to fight in the 2012 Olympics in London, losing a close fight to now professional standout Oscar Valdez. Diego’s subsequent plan, which included a bid for the 2016 games in Rio, was scrapped when changes were made to the AIBA rules, disallowing head gear. “If I’m going to fight without head gear, I might as well get paid for it,” said Diego on going pro. “I am very happy to have signed with the best company in boxing. This is a great opportunity for me, and I have to take advantage of it. I feel very happy and very motivated for September 12th, which will be my debut, and my opportunity to show people that another De La Hoya has arrived in boxing”.

The signing is the fourth for JDLHmgmnt, which also manages undefeated Golden Boy Promotions fighters Julian “El Camaron” Ramirez, Hugo “The Boss” Centeno and Francisco “El Bandido” Vargas. “I’ve watched Diego grow up in boxing, and we’re very excited for this signing,” said JDLHmgmnt founder Joel De La Hoya. “This is another great addition to the management company. It makes it even more special that he’s family. My job is to take him to the top, and between Golden Boy Promotions and myself, I think we’re going to be able to do that for him.”

Diego has relocated from Mexicali, Mexico to California, and will be training with Joel Diaz at Joel Diaz Boxing in Indio. Said Diaz, “It’s an honor having the kid here. He has a good resume. He was part of the Mexican Olympic Team. He wants to learn, and likes to work. He has a lot of potential, and has a devastating left hook. I like working with a kid like that.”

Diego’s professional debut will be televised on FOX Sports 2 and FOX Deportes. Tickets for the bout are available via Ticketmaster or through the MGM Grand Box Office, and are priced $100, $75, $50 and $25.

#######

After helping his brother Oscar navigate the waters of boxing, Joel De La Hoya founded JDLHmgmnt in 2011 to help talented, dedicated athletes achieve success in the sport.

CARSON, CALIF. (Aug. 22, 2013) – Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions hosted the final press conference Thursday for the outstanding fight card that will take place this Saturday, Aug. 24, on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING live on SHOWTIME® (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, immediately following the series premiere of ALL ACCESS: Mayweather vs. Canelo) and SHOWTIME EXTREME (8 p.m. ET/PT) from StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.

In Saturday’s main event of an explosive world championship doubleheader on SHOWTIME, undefeated three-time and three-division World Champion Abner Mares (26-0-1, 14 KO’s), of Downey, Calif., by way of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, will defend his WBC Featherweight World Championship against former Two-Division World Champion Jhonny Gonzalez (54-8, 46 KO’s), of Mexico City.

Unbeaten former IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo “Terremoto” Santa Cruz (24-0-1, 14 KO’s), of Los Angeles, by way of Huetamo, Michoacan, Mexico, will challenge WBC Super Bantamweight World Champion Victor “Vikingo” Terrazas (37-2-1, 21 KO’s), of Guadalajara, in the opening bout of the telecast.

Scheduled for SHOWTIME EXTREME: Antonio Orozco (17-0, 13 KO’s), San Diego, Calif., vs. Ivan Hernandez (23-9, 22 KO’s), Miami, Fla., 10 rounds, junior welterweights; Joseph “Jo Jo’’ Diaz Jr. (6-0, 4 KO’s), South El Monte, Calif., vs. Noel Mendoza (6-2-1, 1 KO), Phoenix, Ariz., 6 rounds, featherweights; and Dominic Breazeale (5-0, 5 KO’s), Los Angeles, vs. Lenroy Thomas (16-2, 8 KO’s), St. Catherine, Jamaica, 8 rounds, heavyweights.

This will be the eighth consecutive appearance on SHOWTIME for Mares (including last May 4 when he dethroned Daniel Ponce De Leon via a ninth-round TKO to capture the WBC 126-pound crown on SHOWTIME PPV) dating back to his SHOWTIME debut on May 22, 2010. Five of Santa Cruz’s six fights since June 2, 2012, have been on SHOWTIME. The other came on The CBS Television Network.

Tickets for an event with a distinct Southern California flavor are priced at $150, $75, $50 and $25, plus applicable taxes, fees and services charges, and are available now at AXS.com, by phone at 888-9-AXS-TIX (888-929-7849) and at StubHub Center Box Office (Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. PT to 6 p.m. PT). VIP Suites are available by calling 877-604-8777. For more information on group discounts or VIP packages, please call 877-234-8425. Doors open at 2 p.m. PT and the first live fight is at 2:20 p.m.

What De La Hoya and the boxers said Thursday from StubHub Center (all the SHOWTIME and SHOWTIME EXTREME fighters except Mendoza were in attendance):

OSCAR DE LA HOYA, President Golden Boy Promotions

“Jhonny Gonzalez brings a lot to the table and is fighting one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world in Abner Mares. I believe they have Abner at No. 5, but I have to disagree with that. I put him up there at No. 3, if not No. 2. Jhonny knows he’s in for a tough fight. Abner knows he’s in for a tough fight. It’s going to be fireworks on Saturday night.

”For the boxing fans in L.A., this is what boxing is all about and this is what they deserve. Abner Mares is a special talent that we are witnessing in our era. He’s a talent that doesn’t come around very often. He’s fought nothing but the best. We all know Gonzalez. He’s a machine who is a tough puncher and a very calculated puncher. Jhonny knows this is his opportunity. Everybody knows that.

“When I first saw Abner fighting in the Olympics for Mexico in 2004 I just knew instinctively that he had that something that all champions have. There is no quit in his game and he has a long career ahead of him. And I wasn’t wrong about him. He’s already great and he keeps on proving it by wanting to only fight the best. And that’s what it takes to become great.”

ABNER MARES, WBC Featherweight World Champion

“I want to thank the entire Golden Boy staff for making this possible. I know them all, from the guy who cleans the office to the head honchos like Oscar and Richard (Schaefer). And I want to thank SHOWTIME. I’ve been a headliner like eight times and it’s just a huge blessing. I won’t disappoint. I promise you a great fight like I always do.

“This is another tough fight, but I want to fight nothing but the best. Champion, ex-world champion, whoever you bring, whoever the fans want me to fight, you know I’ll fight. I like and admire Jhonny Gonzalez. I like his style of fighting and know his camp because (Ignacio) ‘Nacho’ Beristain was my trainer for three years. I know the style and it’s nothing but finesse and nothing but pureness.

“I’ve seen my share of fights from StubHub in the stands, but now I’m ready to experience coming out and putting on a real show for the fans.’’

JHONNY GONZALEZ, Former Two-Division World Champion

“I want to thank Golden Boy and everyone involved for making this fight happen. I am very prepared. A fighter always wants to fight the best and I am fighting the best in Abner Mares.

“The question I’ve been asked the most is if I am looking at this as my last chance at the bigtime. Well, I am not. One way to stop getting this question from the media is to win on Saturday.

“Every fighter wants to get a shot at the world title, and then to win it, but my body feels good and I still feel I have a lot of fight left in me. I’m not looking ahead, but I can see a possible move to super featherweight in the future.

“I may have more knockouts than he has fights (actually, almost twice as many), but he had such a great amateur career than I think we are tied when it comes to experience.

“I am sure the biggest winners will be the fans and the sport of boxing because this fight is going to be a total war.’’

LEO SANTA CRUZ, Former IBF Bantamweight World Champion

“I’d like to thank Golden Boy, SHOWTIME, my manager, Al Haymon and everyone else. I’m 100 percent ready. I’m ready for war. I know that Terrazas is very tough and this will be the hardest fight of my career. I know that he’s been through as much as I have to get to this point. The good thing is that the belt will stay with a Mexican no matter who wins. May the best man win.

“We’ve trained really hard for this and we’re ready. My career depends on this so I have to just leave it all in the ring.’’

VICTOR TERRAZAS, WBC Super Bantamweight Champion

“I think it is great to have so many Mexican fans behind me even though this fight is in his backyard. The support I am getting really makes me feel good.

“We’re going to give the fans what they come out to see: a real fight with toe-to-toe, non-stop action.

“As world champion, you have to defend against any and all comers. Every fight I’ve had, or he’s had, has been a war, and this will not be an exception. This is a great matchup, a fans’ fight. If I was a fan, I know for sure that I’d be watching.

“I’ve studied a lot of tape on Santa Cruz. We’ll see on Saturday how it plays out. Fighters can change from fight to fight, but I know I am prepared and ready for anything. I think one of my best advantages is that I am shorter than he is and because of that I will be able to get inside.’’

ANTONIO OROZCO, Unbeaten Junior Welterweight

“This is my second time on SHOWTIME EXTREME and I am really thankful to SHOWTIME for bringing me back. I am ready to do what I do.

“I don’t know much about Hernandez except that he probably packs a punch, so I know I have to be cautious and not just go out winging shots. But I had a great camp and the work is done

“I don’t just go out looking to be impressive; that’s not in my mindset. Winning is the important thing. I always want to put on a great performance and entertain the fans, but I know I have to stay focused.’’

IVAN HERNANDEZ, Hard-Hitting Junior Welterweight

“I’m looking forward to Saturday. This will be a great fight. Orozco is undefeated, but I don’t think he’s ever faced a fighter like me.’’

JOSEPH “JO JO’’ DIAZ JR., 2012 U.S. Olympian and Undefeated Featherweight

“I just fought last month so I’m right back at it. I had a taste of the StubHub Center before and just knowing it’s my backyard and that the two headliners are in my weight class is just a huge blessing to me.

“I’m expecting my opponent to come out and try to pull off the upset. I’m going to give my all and give everybody a great show. I’m going to be aggressive and I’m going to be alert, and just very powerful.

“I’m working on sitting down my punches more often. And landing more shots. In the amateurs you’re just landing punches and just trying to rack up points. But in the pros I’m trying to be more relaxed and pick the better shots.’’

DOMINIC BREAZEALE, 2012 U.S. Olympian and Unbeaten Heavyweight

“It’s an honor to be on TV and fighting in front of the entire nation. I’m a hometown kid and I’ll have all my friends and family out.

“This is a stepping-stone fight and I have to come out and prove myself and show what I’ve got. I have to impose my will.

“I started my amateur career just down the road at ‘The Rock’ so to be a Southern California kid I couldn’t ask for more to make my television debut. I’m here to gain some fans and I hope to get more and more.”

LENROY THOMAS, Heavyweight

“I know I am coming an as the ‘opponent’ and as basically a stepping stone for him, but if you step on a stepping stone you are going to slide. I haven’t fought in a long time because of personal problems and having to take care of things with my family, but I am looking forward to coming back and proving myself.

“To return to the ring in this kind of fight is a great opportunity for me. I had a great camp. We’ll see who’s best on Saturday.’’

ABOUT “MARES VS. GONZALEZ”:
Mares vs. Gonzalez, a 12-round fight for Mares’ WBC Featherweight World Championship, will take place on Saturday, August 24 at StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. The event is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions, sponsored by Corona and AT&T and will be televised live on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING® immediately following the series premiere of ALL ACCESS: Mayweather vs. Canelo at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT. Also featured will be a 12-round world championship showdown between WBC Super Bantamweight World Champion Victor Terrazas and former IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz. SHOWTIMECHAMPIONSHIP BOXING is available in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP). Mares vs. Gonzalez is presented in association with Promociones Del Pueblo. Preliminary fights will air on SHOWTIME EXTREME® (8 p.m. ET/PT).

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com,www.sports.sho.com
and www.stubhubcenter.com, follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/shosports, www.twitter.com/StubHubCenter,
www.twitter.com/AbnerMares00, www.twitter.com/leosantacruz2, follow the conversation using #MaresGonzalez or become a fan on Facebook www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing,
www.facebook.com/SHOBoxing and www.facebook.com/StubHubCenter.

Kelly Swanson
Thanks everybody for joining us today for “THE ONE” media conference call with the pay-per-view undercard fighters. At this point, I’m going to turn it right over to our hosts of the call; that’s both Oscar De La Hoya and Leonard Ellerbe; Oscar is President of Golden Boy Promotions and Leonard Ellerbe is CEO of Mayweather Promotions. So I’m going to turn it over to Oscar, and then he will introduce Leonard.

Oscar De La Hoya
Yes. We are one month away from the mega event, “The One: Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez,” which will be a 12-round fight for Canelo’s WBC and WBA and Ring Magazine Super Welterweight World title and Mayweather’s WBA Super Welterweight Super World Championship. We also have a tremendous co-main event, Danny Garcia vs. Lucas Matthysse, which obviously you all know that fight could have been a pay-per-view itself, but for the fans Mayweather decided along with Ellerbe and Golden Boy Promotions that this fight belongs on the big stage along with Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez. That will be a unification fight for the lightweight world title. Also, Mayweather promotions put on a tremendous undercard, co-main event with Ishe Smith vs. Carlos Molina. Ishe Smith is promoted by Mayweather Promotions. Also another spectacular fight with Pablo Cesar Cano, who had a tremendous fight against Sugar Shane Mosley in Cancun, Mexico a few weeks ago, is fighting against Ashley Theophane, which will be a ten-rounder in the welterweight showdown.

This event is being brought to you live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, promoted by Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions along with Canelo Promotions. We are excited and thrilled to once again by hosting the live events throughout the MGM properties, which will host the closed circuits at ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo and New York-New York. Also, to make sure that fans get a unique experience nationwide, for all the fans who cannot make it to Las Vegas or watch it at home on pay-per-view, NCM Fathom will be showing Mayweather-Canelo on over 400 movie theatres to get that experience with other fans. Get your popcorn, your drinks, and experience this once in a lifetime opportunity to watch a Mayweather vs. Canelo and the entire card in movie theaters.

It’s a wonderful wonder experience. I really recommend this experience to anyone who hasn’t seen a fight. We’re expecting this even to shatter all records. We have broken one record already, which is the live gates and those are obviously indications that this event will break the pay-per-view record of 2.5 million homes so it’s very exciting for boxing. It’s very exciting for all the fighters, everybody participating so let’s show the world that this is “THE ONE.” This is the one that is going to put boxing on that worldwide stage and show everyone that boxing is the best sport in the world.

So without any further ado, I would like to introduce to you the CEO of Mayweather Promotions and that is Leonard Ellerbe.

Leonard Ellerbe
I’d like to welcome everyone to the call today. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. We have a tremendous event, obviously, on September 14th and it all starts, with the Mayweather vs. Canelo. We have three other undercard bouts—two of those which are world championship fights, so we’ve got a total of three world championship fights on the card. This is the biggest pay-per-view card definitely that I can recall in recent history from top to bottom.

And to start off in the first fight on the show a gentleman, he’s originally from London, England. He’s now living in Las Vegas fighting out of the Mayweather Boxing Club, a gentleman that I just recently signed last week, a guy who I would say is the definition of what a blue-collar worker is all about, a guy who didn’t have it easy. He worked his way through fighting some very, very tough fights. He owns victories over Delvin Rodriguez who is getting ready to fight Miguel Cotto. He’s beaten a number of different top guys along with DeMarcus Corley who took forward 12-rounds. He’s just a very, very tough fighter. A guy who we’re very proud to have on our stable, so without further ado, I’d like to introduce Ashley Theophane. He’s 33-5 with one draw with 10 KO’s.

Ashley Theophane
It’s a pleasure to be on “THE ONE” card. It’s the biggest boxing event in the world. It’s going to be one of the biggest ever and it’s a big achievement on that. Leonard and Floyd have put me on the card and I’m looking forward to it. And for me, obviously, I’ve got Pablo Cano. He’s fought Erik Morales. He’s fought Paulie Malignaggi. He’s fought Johan Perez, Shane Mosley. He is a very tough operator, and I’m going to be in great shape, but to me every time he steps up is when he’s lost, and to me this is another step up, and he’s going to lose again, but I respect him. And I’m saying I’m going to be 110 percent ready, and I didn’t fly over here from London, England to take a loss, that’s not even on my mind. I’m training with the best in the world. I’ve got a great training team, and we’re going to be ready for “The One” and it’s an honor to be on the show with—you’ve got Ishe Smith who is world champ. You’ve got Danny Garcia who is world champ. You’ve got Lucas Matthysse, and then you’ve got the pound-for-pound king who is Floyd Mayweather himself so it’s a great card. It’s one of the best I’ve ever seen, and it’s going to break records.

For me coming from London, England it’s a very big deal. It’s all over the news in England that I’m part of Mayweather Promotions, and I’m representing the UK and at the same time I’m representing like Mayweather Promotions, which is the face of boxing. Mayweather Promotions is taking over boxing. They’ve just had their first world champion, Ishe Smith who is the first Las Vegas born world champ. So it’s great to be part of such a great team, and I have to thank Floyd and Leonard again for this great opportunity that they believe in me and I believe in me. So it’s just all about taking it to the next level and Pablo is the—he’s the great step in the right direction so I want to thank everyone.

Q
Ashley, can you just give us some perspective on what you already did, on you know how big it is to sign with Mayweather Promotions at this point in your career, and also, how important it is at your age to reignite your career against someone like Pablo?

Theophane
Well, it’s great to be with Mayweather Promotions at any point in your career if you’re just starting out, if you’re in the middle of it, or if you’re at the end of it. I’ve been a professional for ten years now, and to me it feels like the right time. Floyd has been a professional for years, for nearly 18 years. I’ve been a professional for ten. You’ve got to have been around for a long time. I still feel that I’ve got a lot left in me, another five or six years so.
I’m not worried about the age. I’m 32-years-old. I’m going to be 33 but if you look at the guys who Pablo lost to he lost to guys who were in their 30s so experience is a very—youth is good but experience at the same time is—you can’t buy experience and that’s what I’ve got. I’m a smart fighter. I’m a strong fighter. I’ve been in with like some good like boxers. There’s Delvin Rodrigues. He’s going to fight Miguel Cotto next. You’ve got Garcia – he’s going to fight Lucas Matthysse. I’ve beaten DeMarcus Corley. He’s fought everyone in boxing. I’ve been British champ so I’ve been around the block. I’ve sparred with the very best in boxing so to me I’m at a good point in my career, and I don’t want no easy fight. This is going to be my … fight. I’m training up with Mayweather Promotions. With them behind my back the world is my oyster and Leonard and Floyd both believe in me and it’s just up to me to do it in the ring and that’s what I’m going to do.

Q
Do you still believe that you could still win a world title maybe even despite your age?

Theophane
Yes, 100 percent. You don’t have to be a world champion in your 20s. Like there’s no age where if you’re 32-years-old you can’t win a world title. Ishe Smith has shown—he won his first world title—oh, I think he was 34-years-old or 33-years-old so it doesn’t matter because everyone they get their—because they get their opportunities at different times in their careers so the age is not an issue. I still feel good. I’m 32-years-old. I haven’t been in like many hard fights because I’m a smart boxer and I have a good defense. The age it doesn’t play a role. I eat well. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. You don’t see me out in the clubs so the age is not an issue.

Q
And have you set a time limit on when you can—how long you want to wait to do it?

Theophane
Well, I’ve been a pro for ten years. I would be—I’m happy to be a professional for another five years so I’m cool. Floyd is 36-years-old now and he’s still in great shape. If he wanted to continue to go on like Oscar did with SHOWTIME he could. If you live the life you can’t put an age restriction. You’ve got Bernard Hopkins, he’s well in to his 40s and it’s not an issue. I don’t want to be boxing when I’m 40-years-old but I’ve set a goal. I’ve had 39 fights so I’m just focused on this fight and to get a win; that’s it. That is the most important thing.

Q
Ashley, when you look at your opponent he’s had some notable fights. Do you take that into consideration knowing that you want to make it big in the states and want to win, of course, a world title and not—as you just finished saying, you may—whether you said it or not you may be patterning your career under Mayweather and you want to have a world title before it’s all over. So what are you doing in consideration to prepare for Cano?

Theophane
Well, if nothing really changes I’m always in shape so it’s just continuing to put forth the hard work in the gym to do my runs, my swimming and stuff, and it’s all about just being focused and being smart. I’m not going to really change anything up. I’ve watched him fight in the past and to me every time he stepped up he lost. He may have 20 KO’s but you have to look who is he knocking out? He’s knocking nobody out. You’ve got Erik Morales. You’ve got Paulie Malignaggi, and you’ve got Shane Mosley so every time he stepped up he lost. If you look at the guys who I beat and you look at the guys who he beat there’s no comparison, so that is what you have to go by. But with every fight you have to respect your opponent, and I respect him because all of those fights that he stepped up he gave them a very hard fight so I expect a hard fight, but I expect to win as well.

Q
Boxing takes all of your life. Mayweather said—and I’m quoting Floyd Mayweather and I think he’s absolutely right because 44 tried and 44 failed. He said that, “Boxing is a 24/7 business not a 9 to 5er.” Do you believe in that concept?

Theophane
One hundred percent and you have to see that. I’ve been a professional for ten years. I’ve never had it easy so I had to go on the road. I’ve boxed in five countries. I’ve won in five countries, but I’ve never had it easy. For me I’m used to being in the backyard and having to fight the promoters’ guy and I’m supposed to lose and I win. So for me I’m used to doing it the hard way so to finally have a team to back me and believe in me that’s only going to make me a better fighter because I know that they have my back. So for me I’m just continuing to work hard and to even work even harder. So we have a young lion who may—he may watch me and think that I’m old now and it’s his time, but he fought that against the other three guys he stepped up to and he always was a bit short. He’s going to be a bit short again because I’m in that class where he stepped up. He is going to lose. It’s just how but I’m focused and I live the life. I don’t party. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke so I don’t put no limit on what I can achieve.

Q
Ashley, Do you have a weight at which you feel most comfortable and when you’re ready to fight for a title it’s just going to matter on the best opportunity or do you have a particular weight class in mind?

Theophane
Well, all through my career I’ve boxed being the junior welterweight and welterweight division so I don’t really like to restrict myself. It’s just on the opportunity, the opponent. I want to fight the best in the world in both divisions so I make weight like good so I’m okay. The weight issue is not a problem for me.

Q
Leonard, I just wanted to ask what caught your eye about Ashley that led Mayweather Promotions to want to sign him and put him on this show?

Ellerbe
Well, Ashley’s a gentleman that I’m very familiar with. I’ve been watching him work for the last couple months. He’s a guy that once I did my research on him—obviously, I had watched him in the Danny Garcia fight a couple years ago and it was a fight that I personally thought that he got the bad end of the stick. And he’s a gentleman that like I say he has tremendous character. I think that he’s had a tough road, as he just mentioned, with going in other fighters’ backyards and getting it done the hard way. So now with us—with him being part of Mayweather Promotions I think that we’re going to go out and create these opportunities, and he just has to go out and win. And I think that he will be a guy that the world will get a chance to see him on September 14th. He’ll put on a tremendous fight, and he’s going to make a lot of noise, and he’s going to be right there in the thick of things with the Danny Garcias and Lucas Matthysses right off the bat.

Q
My question for Ashley was I just was curious how he came to wind up in Vegas training at Mayweather’s gym and how he had kind of met them and wound up with them. I heard what Leonard had said a little earlier about seeing him and doing his research, but I’m curious how and when that Ashley ended up in Las Vegas working with Floyd and the gym.

Theophane
Well, it goes back to Cotto camp when I came over to Vegas because I was in New York. That’s where I normally train and I was there for like eight weeks, and I knew that Floyd was going to fight. I just thought that I would just come over as part of my camp and just do two weeks at the Mayweather Boxing Club. I came over for two weeks. Leonard and Floyd were very nice to me. The sparring there it was great. When I left back I wished Floyd well in his fight with Miguel Cotto, and then the next time came for the Robert Guerrero fight and I had other fight which was going to come up so I said I’ll go out to Vegas again, went out to Vegas for four weeks for this time. I was sparring with great guys, and I just liked the vibe at the gym. The Mayweather Promotions team was all like just friendly with me and I just stayed there for like the whole camp, and it just went on like this from there. So I think Leonard and Floyd just heard about the work that I was putting in the gym, and then I got to spar with Floyd and it was just step-by-step, bit-by-bit just keep working, the way I’ve done my whole career just putting in the work. Floyd and Leonard listened to what others were—like said that I was a good boxer and they got my record, and then the rest is history. I signed up with Mayweather Promotions to take it to the next level now.

Q
I have one other question for you, Ashley, and Leonard made reference to it in his comments about thinking that maybe you came out on the wrong end of the stick in the very close good fight you had with Garcia a couple years ago, which is really the first time he had ever faced what people would consider yourself one of the top guys in the weight class. I’m curious to see him in this undercard fighting in the co-feature and a pretty big fight. Do you feel like with a good performance on a card in which he is also features that you could perhaps if he does okay in his fight get a rematch with him like for the title?

Theophane
You know I don’t focus on one opponent because there’s many great boxers in the welterweight and the junior welterweight division, but if a rematch happens it happens. A lot of people thought that I beat him the first time around. To me it was a close fight and they gave it to him. It happens in boxing, but the fight could happen down the line. I thought I won the first time. I’ve watched him fight and he’s big so I’m very happy that he’s gone on to be a world champ, but I don’t think that he has improved much since I watched him fight. He beat Amir Khan. He beat Erik Morales, but other than that I haven’t really seen much improvement, but you never know. It could happen in the future. I just want to fight in the division, and I’m not just going to focus on one man. It’s whoever.

Oscar De La Hoya
Now I would like to introduce to you the other participant, which will be fighting Theophane. He has a record of 26-3-1, 20 KO’s. He hales out of Mexico, Tlalnepantla, Mexico. He’s one of the top hopefuls from Mexico. We would consider him a future world champion who is fighting the best and this is no exception. Theophane is a fighter who is going to bring his a-game and Cano understands that. He’s coming off two close decision losses against Paulie Malignaggi and Shane Mosley. Obviously, we know him making his breakthrough battle against legendary Eric Morales, and so he’s always here to put on a show. He’s in tremendous shape now. He’s ready to take the world by storm September 14th so let me introduce to you Pablo Cesar Cano.

Q
Pablo, what has your preparation been for this fight with Ashley?

Pablo Cesar Cano
I understand I came off two controversial fights, but I am preparing very hard. I am 100% ready and I am not looking for a knockout. I am just looking to make a great fight, and just give the fans what they want.

Q
You are very young. Do you feel that’s an advantage?

Cano
I believe it is an advantage however there are older boxers just like Bernard Hopkins that even though he’s at an older age he’s still very strong, very fast, and I believe age is nothing but a number, and I’m going to just give 100 percent and fight a great fight.

Q
Pablo, you’ve been in with three former champions and lost close decisions. Is there any concern that after this fight you could, at an early age, slip in to opponent status or more or less sparring partner mentality?

Cano
I understand I have been in three close fights with three great champions with great names and that I have gained a lot of experience, and with that experience I’m taking that in to account with my new plans. I’m just going to fight, and gain more experience there. I just believe that I am going to give a great fight.

Swanson
We will now make the transition to our next set of fighters and will turn it over to Leonard to make the introductions. Leonard.

Ellerbe
Mayweather Promotions’ first world champion, what can I say? A gentleman that has been the epitome of what hard work and dedication is all about. He’s a guy that’s been around the sport for quite some time. He’s had his ups and downs but he’s persevered. He’s a guy that’s obviously just not even a year ago was initially—you know got the opportunity to come in, worked with Floyd to help him prepare to get ready for Cotto, and he made the most of the opportunity because he’s a guy that we’ve been familiar with for quite some time. He’s been knowing the whole Mayweather family for a number of years. A guy that we know firsthand the kind of setbacks that happened in the sport and a lot of times it’s really about the right situation that you’re in to protect your best interest and he was a guy that we took under our wing. We got him an opportunity with “K-9” Bundrage for the world title, and he definitely made the most of that opportunity and the sky is the limit. He’s a guy, like I said, who represents not only Las Vegas with being the first born Las Vegas world champion, which is a tremendous feat within itself, but he’s a very, very proud champion. He understands what being world champion is about. He has a responsibility to that, and he wants to be the best that he can be. He’s a guy, like I said, I personally admire quite a bit. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce the IBF Junior Middleweight Champion, none other than Ishe Smith.

Ishe Smith
Training is going great. I had put in eight weeks before I suffered the cut to fight July 19th and we took a couple weeks off and got right back in the gym so training has been great. It’s just a fabulous, wonderful opportunity to be fighting on this card; the biggest card of my career. You know I’m not the main event. It’s just an honor. It’s just sometimes I just can’t believe it. It’s taken me 13 years to be on a big card, but I’m truly honored. I’m truly blessed, and I wouldn’t be here without God and just without him placing the right people in my life, like Mayweather Promotions people. It’s been a great ride. It’s been a real good ride.

Ellerbe
This next gentleman has been around for quite some time himself. He’s a guy that’s finally getting his shot after quite some time. He began making a lot of noise with his definitely heavily disputed draw against Lara in 2011. He’s won four of his last five fights. He has beat former world champions like Kermit Cintron and Cory Spinks with his only loss coming with a controversial DQ against James Kirkland in March of 2012. He’s a very, very tough competitor. It took quite some time for me to make this fight happen, and we were more than happy to put this fight as a world championship fight on the biggest card ever, and we know that Carols Molina—he’s a very, very tough fighter, and he’s coming to win, and his promotional company, Warriors Boxing, they’ve been behind supporting him, and, like I say, he’s coming to lay it on the line come September 14th. So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce Carlos Molina.

Carlos Molina
I’m ready. I had a good training. I was ready July 19th. We’ve been training all summer long and the best shape of my life. I’m just entering my time in my career. I just turned 30-years-old. I’m feeling great. I’m feeling my best and I am ready for September 14th.

Q
I have a question and maybe Ishe and Carlos you can both answer this. I’ll start off with Ishe. I know you probably would have liked to have the fight when it was originally planned on July 19th after participating in your training camp and doing all the things you do to get ready for the fight, but now looking back is it almost better for you do you think that this fight was postponed and now you get to be on a much, much bigger stage than you would have otherwise been on previously?

Smith
I think so. It’s a privilege to, like I said, to be on the biggest card of my career, bigger than any contender card I ever fought on, bigger than any show boxing main event, bigger than any co-features that I’ve been on. It’s a blessing. July 19th was because I work a lot with the youth out here in Vegas. I coach various sports, and I had a lot of people coming in town and these tickets are already sold out so it’s disheartening. Now I’m not able to have the people that can’t get tickets or can’t afford these kind of priced tickets to come see me fight but they’ll be tuned in on TV watching on pay-per-view. And like I said, it’s just an honor. Mayweather Promotions made sure that I get another date at home after this so it definitely is an honor. I don’t take it for granted at all.

Q
And Carlos, how about yourself? Like you just said you were going to fight the 19th on TV but not on a big mega card like this. Do you think from the way you look at it it’s almost better to be on this level of a show than had you been on that other card on the 19th?

Molina
Yeah well I mean like to me really it doesn’t matter where it is. I just want to fight. I want to fight for the IBF belt and wherever it happens to be—this happens to be an even greater opportunity I feel, but like I said it doesn’t really matter as long as I get the title shot and get that belt. But yeah to be on a big card like this and get all that exposure that’s definitely better.

Q
Well, especially because the main event happens to be taking place in the same weight class where you guys both fight, and certainly people will look at that main event, look at the winner of the fight between you two, and it’s certainly not out of the question if the winner wants to further unify the title they would have to see you. Do you think about at as a prospect of—it may be a long shot but—landing a shot with the winner against Alvarez or Floyd?

Molina
Yes, definitely. I mean right now, first things first is, Ishe. I’m ready for that fight. The belt, without that it’s nothing else but getting that and making a statement in this fight, and then being considered to be—being on the radar for these guys. If they don’t want to give me the fight right away I’ll be really—I’ll be willing to fight anyone. Just keep winning and sooner or later you might get that.

Q
All right. I have just one other question for you, Ishe. With regard to the cut that you suffered, how bad was it and how is it now?

Smith
It was pretty bad at the time, but we have great doctors. I was able to see a doctore here in town, and we did the right things we needed to do, and it’s healed up really well. I’ve been sparring for some weeks now and everything is going perfect, everything is great.

Q
Ishe Smith, I have been following you for years before the contender series but you remind me of a very young Sugar Ray Robison and that is the truth. I’m wondering how come after the contender you seem to fall off the radar screen and I didn’t see you for years and years until now finally Golden Boy—not Golden Boy but Mayweather Promotions finally put you where you belonged a long time ago. I see the emotion broke out of you when you won the title. Has it been frustrating all these years to finally come up in to a title owner and under the biggest fight of the year card?

Smith
Well, you know I think as a man I needed to go through those things. Those things you can’t predict life. Obviously, it’s not the way I scripted it starting off and then going to the contender, but things happen and I couldn’t be happier with my life where it is right now. I have some very important people that have helped me get to where I am today, and without them I wouldn’t be where I am, and that’s why I’m always grateful to Mayweather Promotions and everything that they’ve done for me. But you know this is the biggest card. It don’t matter what happened in the past. This is probably arguably the biggest card in the last ten to fifteen years just because of the main event and the co-feature so it’s a privilege and an honor to be on this card, and, like I said, as a man I think I needed to go through those trials and tribulations to be where I am today and I’m truly blessed.

Q
Yeah this question both of you can answer. Given your past and you both had tough luck stories—and Ishe, I thought you beat Fernando Guerrero by the way—knowing what you’ve been through, each of you, and knowing who you’re fighting has been through similar situations could this, for both of you, and each of you answer, be the most difficult fight and at the same time probably bring out the best in each of you? Can each of you answer that question?

Molina
Ishe is a pretty well-rounded fighter. I feel like the harder I train—it depends on how hard I train to make the fight easier for me, so I’m not sure. I can’t say something like that until I actually get in there and go through it and do it, but I feel like it is going to bring out the best in me because there’s a championship fight that I would have. Even though I train for every fight and I can pine for the championship fight this is it right here. This is what I visualized since I started boxing and it’s right in front of me, and I’m so focused. I’m so ready. I’m ready to go. I wish the fight was closer.

Smith
Whenever you’re world champion you know you’ve got a lot of people gunning for you and coming to take what you’ve earned and what you fought hard to accomplish. And I was able to do that in Detroit, and I don’t want to fall victim to looking past Carlos. He’s a tough competitor, and I’ve trained really hard so I won’t have any hiccups and I don’t have any trip ups. This fight we’re in tremendous shape and I’m ready to go, but I think it’s going to be a good night of boxing. Everyone on the card is going to be great from top to bottom, and I’m looking forward to putting on a tremendous fight for all the Las Vegas fans and all the fans across the world who will be tuned in on pay-per-view.

Q
One more question for Ishe. Can you address Carlos’ style? Have you faced anybody with guess awkward would be the best word?

Smith
I’ve faced all kinds of styles. They said K-9 was going to be too big and strong for me and he was awkward. You don’t worry about styles; skills pay the bills, and come September 14th I’ll be ready to go and I’ll be keeping my title here at home. I don’t worry about he going to fight. I just have to listen to my coach and go out there and execute the game plan, and I feel like the one fight I didn’t do that—where I didn’t listen to him was the only fight I lost and that was Danny Jacobs. But, as you said, I thought I beat Guerrero and since I’ve been with Eddie we haven’t lost a fight at 154 pounds so I’m extremely excited to be defending my title at home. To accomplish so much in my career in such a short period of time being with Mayweather Promotions and having this wonderful opportunity to fight on the biggest state in boxing is just amazing.

Q
Ishe, first of all you’ve ended up with an opponent who is, in my mind, going to be much trickier than K-9 Bundrage. Why did you select him as an opponent? How did that come to be? This is a fight nobody saw coming, and do you see any parallels between youself and Molina? You have had similar circumstances coming up.

Smith
He’s a hard worker. You can’t really say that he’s tougher or trickier than K-9 because K-9 was a world champion. Like I said, I don’t worry about styles. I just go in there and fight my fight. I told Leonard to make this fight. I fold Leonard when I won the title that he was going to be the first guy I fought. I didn’t have to make this mandatory until November but I respect his story. I respect where he come from, and I want to give the fans what they want, and I want to fight the best. That’s just the bottom line. I want to fight the best in my division and go out on top. When I retire I want to be talked about and I want to be remembered, and I think that’s what everybody wants in this game, and I think I’ve already left a legacy by being the first Las Vegas born world champion but it’s not complete. We still writing the script and, like I said, I’m excited to be fighting on the biggest card in boxing and I can’t wait to go.

Q
You’re a titleholder now. Have you changed any in your day-to-day approach to life or has anything changed in your mind or what you do or how you approach things in general?

Smith
You know you’ve become champion it just takes your training to another level because you realize you got guys coming for you. There’s not a week that I can’t go by without somebody mentioning my name so that all comes with the territory. I haven’t changed anything. I still work very hard. I still train hard, and I’m ready to defend my title and keep my title.

Swanson
Thank you very much gentlemen. We will now move on to our co-featured fight of the evening and I would like to reintroduce Oscar De La Hoya to make the introductions.

De La Hoya
It is very exciting to be introducing what we expect is an explosion come September 14th with two great fighters, and I am saying great because you have on one hand Lucas Matthysse who has a tremendous, tremendous record, an outstanding knockout ratio, 94% of his wins come by knockout; and on the other hand you have the champion Danny Garcia who is undefeated, 26-0, 16 KO’s who keeps on proving to every single person day in and day out that he is going to be great. He is going to be taking all comers. This is a fight that, like I said before, belongs on its own pay-per-view on any given day. This is a fight that the people have been waiting for. This is a fight that when you finish watching if you do not love boxing already you will fall in love with the sport because this is what it’s all about. Putting Lucas Matthysse against Danny Garcia in that same squared ring will be a tremendous, night for every boxing fan across the globe.

Let me introduce to you first—he is rated number one at 140 pounds by the Ring Magazine, has scored a staggering 94% of his wins by knockout. He does possess the highest KO percentage of any world champion in history, and has won six fights in a row by KO including his third round KO of Lamont Peterson on May 18th. He has a record of 34-2, 32 KO’s, Trelew, Chubut, Argentina, Lucas “The Machine” Matthysse.

Lucas Matthysse
Hi. Good afternoon. I’m here at the gym trying to train. We’re sparring and I’m very happy and pleased to be on this call.

De La Hoya
Now, I’m going to introduce to you a young man who needs no introduction. He is the unified super lightweight world champion. He first won his world title in 2012 by dropping then … legendary Erik Morales for the WBC 140 pound title, and, like I said before, he keeps proving everyone who has doubt in him—he keeps proving them wrong in every fight that he’s in. He has great knockout power but at the same time he does possess the talent of a boxer/puncher. He hales out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the unified super lightweight world champion with a record of 26-0, 16KO’s, Danny “Swift” Garcia.

Danny Garcia
Hey. What’s up, everybody? I want to say good afternoon to everybody. I hope you’re having a blessed day, and I’m very motivated for this fight. I’ve been working hard in the gym, and I’m very excited for September 14th and it’s going to be another epic showcase by me that night.

Q
Lucas, what is your plan for this fight?

Matthysse
I am training very hard. It’s a hard fight but I’m going to give the fans what they want, and I’m going to bring the win to Argentina.

Q
Lucas, Danny Garcia as an athlete and as a fighter or are you going to go in to the ring and just give it your all?”

Matthysse
I respect Danny as a fighter. He’s a great champion, but I am going to give the fight 100%.

Q
Lucas, can you talk about what it has been like for you since you’ve signed with Al Haymon? Do you have this new sense that you’re going to be able to be in big fights such as this in your future?

Matthysse
Yes the plans are to have bigger and greater fights and to continue fighting.

Q
Danny, just from some of the stuff that I’ve read and some of the way your father has reacted I get the sense that he feels you’re not being as respected as a champion as you feel you should be and he feels you should be, and, in fact, that maybe you’re not being treated as or perceived as the a-side. Most notably, he talked about Lucas’ presence on the cover of Ring Magazine. What are your thoughts? What do you have to say about that and is that true?

Garcia
You know I really don’t care what the media thinks or who they think is the best because in my heart I know I’m the best, and I hold the titles, and September 14th is going to be another day at work for me, and I’m just going to defend my title. I’m still champion and the people who don’t believe hey that’s their problem. I know in my heart I’m the best 140 pound fighter in the world, and I’m going to show it on September 14th.

Q
Last question for you, that left hook sequence—where Lucas dropped Lamont Peterson with his left hook, and obviously Peterson landed his but it didn’t have as much of an effect. You are known as the left hooker. If that sequence happens in your fight can you kind of address what might happen? Do you think he’s seen a left hook like yours?

Garcia
We’ll have to see. I’ve fought big punchers. I took big shots before, but Peterson when he threw that left hook he was more in a position that’s why he got the end of it. But I’m just going to be smart. I’m going to do what I do best, make adjustments in the fight and get the victory.

Q
Okay. My question is for Danny Garcia; Danny, do you think that for this match the winner deserves the fight with Mayweather and Canelo’s winner? Do you think you are ready for the fight with Mayweather?

Garcia
It’s a big fight but I’ve got to worry about my fight. I’m not really worried about the future right now. My future is Lucas Matthysse and I’m not looking past him, but that’s up to Golden Boy and Al Haymon and whatever they want to do. I’m just a fighter and that’s what I do is fight, so whoever they put me against that’s what I do.

Q
Why do you think that the people doesn’t believe you after the many fights, many knockouts in favor of you?

Garcia
I really don’t know because I feel like I’m before my time a lot of people still don’t understand it because I’m not supposed to be here right now. It wasn’t supposed to be my time right now. I made it my time. I took it and the people still don’t understand it but I’m just going to keep building my legacy and proving myself.

Q
My question for Lucas is he had such an easy time knocking out Lamont Peterson, I wondered did he anticipate that victory was going to be as easy as it, at least, looked on the outside of the ring, and does he think that he can do something similar and make that kind of statement against Garcia?

Matthysse
Going in to the Lamont Peterson fight was difficult at the beginning but then it became easy for me and that’s why I knocked him out. With Danny Garcia, I have prepare myself but I believe that I’m going to do my best and just give a great fight.

Q
Do you think though that the end result could be the same, an early knockout because your power at least it looks so good in his recent fights?

Matthysse
I respect Danny Garcia as a champion. I am going to give a lot of resistance, but I feel that I am confident enough to give a great fight. It is going to be a difficult fight but I’m not looking for a knockout. I am looking to have a great victory and give a great fight.

Q
I have just one other question for Lucas. Some of the comments Danny has made—although he is showing respect for Lucas it doesn’t sound like he really thinks a whole lot of his punching power. He has said that he has a built up record in Argentina where he really didn’t fight a lot of top opponents, and then when he came to the United States and fought people like Zab Judah, like Devin Alexander that—the way Danny described it was as soon as somebody hit him back he lost, and that the record and the knockout power is maybe a little overrated. How does Lucas respond to that?

Matthysse
On September 14th I’m going to prove to Danny—That’s going to be the proof that when he feels my punches if they’re strong enough or not, and that will either give him the benefit of the doubt if he is strong.”

Q
How do you think the ambiance is going to be around Las Vegas? There’s going to be a lot more Mexicans than there is Argentinians. Do you believe the Mexicans are going to be behind your back?”

Matthysse
Yes. I believe the Mexicans will be behind me; although, there will be a few Argentinians there to support me and to see a great fight.

Q
If there is a victory against Danny Garcia what element will it give you with the Argentinian public?”

Matthysse
I would be on top of the world. The Argentinians will—it would be the best fight of my life.

Q
Hey, Danny. I know that you said that your job is just—on your team is just as a fighter but the reality was this fight was on the table for a while. How soon after your win over Zab Judah did you realize that you would probably be fighting Lucas Matthysse?

Garcia
I accepted the fight when he came to me. I think it was about five, six weeks ago, five weeks, six weeks ago. As soon as the fight was gave to me I accepted it but it took them time because the negotiations; you know it’s a big fight. It’s not an easy fight to make, and as my fighter I accepted the fighter. Me and my dad we accepted the fight and the negotiations—where the fight was going to take place, the money so it was a lot of things but the fight got done. I’m happy and then I’m happy to give the fans again what they want.

Q
I guess what I was trying to get at like when you—before you even accept a card do you have like an idea of who you want to fight next? I know you’re the type, you know I fight whoever they put in front of me, but obviously I know you always want to fight the best. Did you recognize Matthysse as the best of the lot and that you would have to fight him? Not that you would have to fight him but fight him to prove that you are the best.

Garcia
Yeah no doubt it was a fight that the fans wanted and the boxing world. He’s buzzing off his last two victories; his last two knockout wins so the fight was built up. Showtime made it big. The media made it big so it was only worth it to fight with me.

Ellerbe
I want to touch on to what Danny just added on. I just think this is kind of important. A lot of times when you have big events like this and obviously this is a main event on its own, but there was a lot of criticism coming Danny’s way, unjustifiable, by members of the media and the fans because obviously those out there who thought that Danny was unafraid to take the fight. But let me go on the record with this; I know firsthand. Obviously, I have a very close working relationship with my business partner and everyone knows who that is and we at least talk ten times a day. Danny and his dad, I know firsthand, have been very, very adamant that they wanted that fight to the point where they were bugging Haymon about making the fight. What’s taking so long?

I just want to be clear that this is a fight that Danny and his dad wanted from the very beginning. It’s just a matter of the things that take time for fights to come together, and it’s just not simple little things. Obviously, when you’re talking about large amounts of revenue and other particulars that come in to play because that’s great but you know fighters at this level there’s no such thing about being scared of one another. When it comes down to it nobody is scared to make money. Danny didn’t get to this level—his father is a tremendous trainer. They didn’t get to where they’re out—Lucas didn’t get to where they’re at—two fighters being scared of one another. This is a tremendous fight and this is the fight that the fans have demanded and both guys want to fight and it’s going to be a great fight come September 14th. I just wanted to add on the fact that I know firsthand that Danny and his dad had demanded this fight to the point where they were bugging Mr. Haymon about what was taking so long in getting this fight made.

Q
Danny, I know that you were ringside for Lucas’ KO Peterson and you’re a champion. I mean we all know that you have the ability and the goods to make this happen and pull off a victory, but I’m just wondering what you’re doing psychologically to prepare yourself because he’s a scary dude.

Garcia
I’m doing the same thing I always do, just training hard, and yeah he has power but I have power too so if he’s not careful he’s going to get hurt. But I’m not going in there worrying about another man. I’m doing what I do best and just training hard, staying focused, and adapting; adapting to the fight. I’m not going in there worrying about another man’s power. I’ve got power myself so I’m just going to go in there, make adjustments and get the job done.

Q
Hey, Danny. Was the random blood testing as a result of what happened with Eric Morales or is it something that’s related to suspicions that have crept up concerning Lucas’ camp or his results in fights?

Garcia
No. That has nothing to do with Lucas Matthysse. Ever since I won the world title, ever since I bet Erik Morales the first time, Amir Khan took the test, Morales took it again, Zab Judah took the fight and now this fight. It doesn’t matter who I fight for what it’s just something I feel needs to be done if you want to be the champion. And it’s my fourth defense and it’s the fourth fighter who has took the test; it’s just something that comes with do you have to beat the champion and that’s something I ask for. I just want a clean fight and that’s it. It has nothing to do with Lucas Matthysse. It’s just what I do.

Q
Hey, Danny, this question is for you. You’ve been in lots of fights. We all know this is not going to be an easy fight. Would you say this is your hardest fight up to date?

Garcia
I could probably answer that question after the fight because the fights not here yet. I really don’t know because sometimes the hardest fights—sometimes you think the hardest fights will be the easiest fights, sometimes you think the easiest fights will be the hardest fight. You really don’t know until the fight happens, but you know at this level you know you’re going to get hit. It’s all about preparing for the fight and making adjustments, and that’s what I feel I bring to the table.

Garcia
Okay. You know I’ll thank the media for taking the time out to ask these questions, and I’m very excited about being a part of this and I’m training hard. I’m very motivated, and I can’t wait to show my fans and all the new fans that are going to be watching me September 14th what I’m about and I’m going to keep the title in Philadelphia. I’m going to do this for all my Latinos around the world. The end.

Matthysse
I just want to thank everyone for their time today. I am training really hard in Argentina and will be ready for September 14.

Ellerbe
You heard today from all six guys who are fighting on the card, and we have, like I said, a top fight card, best that I’ve seen in recent history. We’re expecting great things. We know we have great fights, and the Matthysse v. Danny Garcia, like I said, that fight is fireworks all over. You have Matthysse who is known as—he has the most feared man out there in boxing today and we know that Danny’s a great champion and that fight’s going to come down to one guy trying to impose his will and the other guy doing what he does. I think you’re going to see a tremendous, tremendous fight in that fight. I think you’ll be able to see Garcia be able to do things that many people hadn’t seen him do before, and I think that you’ll be able to see what happens when Danny backs Matthysse up. All those things will be answered in that fight and come September 14th those questions will be answered on that night. And the fight before that we have Ishe and Molina; that’s going to be another barn burner, another world championship fight. Ishe is coming to win. Carlos is coming to win. It’s going to be a great fight, and to open up the card Ashley and Cano, both guys have never ever been in a not exciting fight.

From top to bottom we have a tremendous card, and we’re just really, really truly excited. Mayweather Promotions working with Golden Boy Promotions, Richard, Oscar and their great staff and obviously my staff and Kelly’s staff we’ve all been working together to make this a great night of boxing, and we look forward to all you guys continuing to support this event, and come September 14th expect a great night.

De La Hoya
Thank you very much. Guys, we have we have exciting news coming up in the weeks leading up to the event so we will talk soon, and we will see you soon. Thank you.

END CALL

“THE ONE: MAYWEATHER VS. CANELO,” a 12-round fight for Canelo’s WBC, WBA and Ring Magazine Super Welterweight World Championships and Mayweather’s WBA Super Welterweight Super World Championship taking place Saturday, Sept. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, is promoted by Mayweather Promotions, Golden Boy Promotions and Canelo Promotions and sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly Auto Parts, AT&T, Valvoline, Mexico Tourism, Fred Loya Insurance and Nature Nutrition. In the 12-round co-featured attraction, WBC, WBA Super and Ring Magazine Super Lightweight World Champion Danny Garcia and thunderous puncher WBC Interim Super Lightweight World Champion Lucas Matthysse square off in a fight presented in association with Swift Promotions and Arano Box Promotions. Also, Ishe Smith vs. Carlos Molina square off in a 12-round battle for Smith’s IBF Junior Middleweight World Title which is promoted in association with Warriors Boxing. The opening bout on SHOWTIME PPV features a 10-round welterweight showdown between Pablo Cesar Cano and Ashley Theophane. The mega-event will be produced and distributed live by SHOWTIME PPV® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The event can be heard in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP).

Less than 24 hours after going on sale on June 25, the event was sold out, but six MGM Resorts properties will host live closed circuit telecasts of “THE ONE.” Properties showcasing the event include ARIA, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo and New York-New York. General admission tickets for the closed circuit telecasts are priced at $100, not including handling fees, and are available for purchase at each individual property’s box office outlets and also are available for purchase by phone with a major credit card at 866-799-7711. Closed circuit ticket sales are limited to eight (8) per person. Tickets also are available through Ticketmaster by calling (800) 745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

For more information, visit www.floydmayweather.com, www.mayweatherpromotions.com, www.goldenboypromotions.com,www.sports.sho.com and www.mgmgrand.com, follow on Twitter at @FloydMayweather, @CaneloOficial, @MayweatherPromo, @DannySwift, @IsheSugarShay, @GoldenBoyBoxing, @mgmgrand and @SHOSports, follow the conversation using #TheOne and become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FloydMayweather, www.facebook.com/MayweatherPromotions, www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing and www.facebook.com/SHOBoxing.

OSCAR DE LA HOYA, President of Golden Boy Promotions

“I want to acknowledge a person that is doing a tremendous job in bringing boxing back to the masses, that is Stephen Espinoza, SHOWTIME is bringing you the best fights and the best fighters.

“San Antonio really knows how to stand behind the sport of boxing and support boxing and Saturday’s event is going to be no exception. This is going to be a tremendous lineup.

“These are the KNOCKOUT KINGS for a reason, you have explosive fighters from top to bottom, fighters who understand what hard work is all about, fighters who go out there and fight for the fans, for the public and for the recognition of being called a “KNOCKOUT KING”.

“We are looking forward to bring the big names in the sport of boxing. Why? “Because San Antonio knows these big names.

“These Argentinian fighters like Lucas Matthysse, Sergio Martinez and Marcos Maidana are the kind of fighters that can pack a punch, they throw punches with tremendous power.

“Diego Chaves is a champion for a reason and he’s fighting, in my eyes, one of the best top three in the welterweight division, Keith “One Time” Thurman. It’s going to be an amazing fight.

“Don’t let these two fighters fool you [Figueroa and Arakawa]. You know young look.

“Figueroa has been blowing everybody out of the water with his work ethic, with relentlessness up and down the ring. He’s the kind of fighter that knows what he wants and knows what to do to get it.

“In this main event you have two warriors, two fighters that put everything on the line, their heart on the line.

ANDRE BERTO, Former Two-Time Welterweight World Champion

“There’s really not much to say, these guys had said it all.

“I’m in tremendous shape, I’m focused. I’m going to put on a hell of a performance.

“I’m just going to go in there and be me. I’m not worried about the title of the show, I’m not worried about his record. I’m just going to go in there and get the win.

“I am in great shape and I have everything to bring to the table. I have the speed, I have the power. I have the explosiveness and I’m going out there and do what I know how to do.

“I’ve known Virgil (Hunter) since I was 13 so it’s not like he’s a stranger to me. Everything’s been flowing pretty well and it’s been a great situation for me.

“The show is called Knockout Kings but no matter how it goes, I know it’s going to be exciting. You’re definitely going to see a lot of speed, a lot of power and a lot of explosiveness, it’s going to be an exciting show.

“It’s going to be a hell of a fight; I’m in shape. I’m in good spirits. I’m focused and I know Soto Karass is ready too.”

JESUS SOTO KARASS, Veteran Welterweight Contender

“My preparation has been great. My team knows what Berto brings. He’s an ex-champion. We know that he’s a quality fighter and he’s tough. But that’s why we train for this.

“The losses you see on my record, I wasn’t taking it serious. But, believe me, we’re taking Andre Berto very serious. Not only have I matured personally but I’ve matured in the ring. The preparation has been very good. We know we have a tough opponent, but we’re here and we’re prepared to win.

“Every fight I come with a different plan. We have a plan for Andre Berto. We have a Plan A, a Plan B, it doesn’t matter; we’ll be ready for him.

“My only prediction is it’s going to be a war. I’m going to leave my heart in there. If I have to die in the ring I will.

“Out of the ring we’re friends, but inside the ring it’s another thing. I don’t have anything against Andre Berto but once we get in the ring I’m looking to knock him out.

“I want everyone to help, help me with breast cancer awareness. We have a raffle going on – it’s $10 to buy a ticket and you can win the gloves and the trunks that I wear in the ring. Let’s go knockout cancer as well.

“The reason I support Susan G. Komen is because of Oscar De La Hoya. It really touched my heart that Oscar lost his mother, Cecilia, to cancer. So being a boxer I felt like I would join that fight to knock out breast cancer.

“I’m ready; I’m only a pound-and-a-half away. I can’t wait until tomorrow so I can get on the scale and go eat.”

OMAR FIGUEROA, Undefeated Rising Star & WBC Lightweight Contender

“This is it, this is seventeen years of work. This is why every boxers starts, what every boxer dreams of. This is it. The goal is the green belt, that’s the one, that’s the best one. That’s the one we all want.

“This is a great opportunity, this is what we have been working so hard for.

“I want to thank my opponent’s team for having agreed to this fight, he’s ranked number one and that’s what we wanted.

“We don’t take anybody lightly. We are ready, we know that a fight can take many directions with every step you take in the ring, so we are ready.

“I’m excited to be on this card. It’s really an honor to fight in the KNOCKOUT KINGS because is one thing to be considered a fighter and another one to be considered a knockout artist.

“I’m fighting with great knockout artist such as Keith Thurman, Berto, Chaves and Arakawa and all these are great fighters

“We are the backbone [of boxing] because we fight to knock someone out, we try to provide the fans with the most excitement we can and we go in there ready for war.”

NIHITO ARAKAWA, WBC Interim Lightweight World Championship Contender

“I’m happy to have this chance at my first world title. That gives me extra motivation to win this fight.

“I don’t think I can win by points. I have to knock him out – I think that’s my only chance to walk out of here with a world title.

“My nickname is “Baby Faced Sniper,” but when I saw Omar Figueroa it looks like he’s a little bit more baby faced than I am. So I want to give him my nickname “Baby Faced Sniper.”

“I’ve prepared for this world title chance for my entire life and I know Omar has prepared for this as well. We’re both going to fight as hard as we can to get that first world title. I know I want it and I know he wants it, so it’s going to be an exciting fight.”

DIEGO CHAVES
, WBA Interim Welterweight World Champion

“We know we have a tough opponent, we have very similar records, neither of us can lose concentration during the fight because it can end with only one punch that’s why we are very well prepared and we know we can take the win.

“I know Keith is a good fighter, but I hope he’s ready because I’m going to show him and the world why I’m a world champion and why this belt is coming back with me to Argentina.

“He may be undefeated, but he’s never faced anyone like me.

“I’ve been training hard, very hard. We are looking forward to a great fight, and we are confident the we’ll come out victorious.

“It’s going to be a war. I’m not going to leave my belt in the judges’ hands- I plan on taking care of Thurman on my own.”

KEITH THURMAN, WBA World Championship Welterweight Contender

“It’s a tremendous fight. I’m 20-0 with 18 knockouts; Chaves is 22-0 with 18 knockouts. You don’t see this very often with young fighters.

“But I’m the kind of fighter that’s knocking on everybody’s door. Everybody in the welterweight division will soon know about Keith “One Time” Thurman. We’re moving up one step at a time and we’re going to step over Diego on Saturday night, guaranteed.

“The KO bonus has nothing to do with the way I fight. My motto is already KOs for life and the nickname “One Time.” I do my best to get the fighter out of there because if we don’t have to do the distance then that, to me, is a job well done.

“We’re always looking for that knockout; we’re always looking for that one punch that can change the fight around. That’s just me, that’s just “One Time.” That knockout bonus is just another check waiting.

“I definitely don’t think he’s faced anyone like me. That’s why I’m confident. I believe he’s been spoon-fed his entire career. A lot of people say the fighters I’ve fought knew I was favored, but they were still world-class fighters and I dominated them each and every round. And I plan on dominating Diego Chaves every round Saturday night.

“Knockout Kings II – this event has that title for a reason. I guarantee you’ll get your moneys’ worth.”

ANTHONY DIRRELL, Light Heavyweight Contender

“I battled cancer and it didn’t hold me down. I’m still here and I’m ready.

“Coming up this Saturday, I’ll win with by knockout. ”

ANTHONY HANSHAW,
Light Heavyweight Contender

“It doesn’t matter what happened when I fought his brother. The fact that I lost to Andre just gives me extra motivation. When I fought Andre, I wasn’t in shape at all. But I’m in some of the best shape of my career to fight Anthony. I had a great camp and I’m ready to give him the first loss of his career.”

JESSE JAMES LEIJA, Former World Champion & Boxing Legend

“I want to thank the Susan G. Komen Beast Cancer Foundation – you are important in every one of our lives because we all have moms. But that’s not to say that men can’t get breast cancer as well.

“I want to thank Golden Boy Promotions for giving us the opportunity to put on the type of fights that we’ve been bringing to San Antonio.

“I also want to thank SHOWTIME. I won my first world title on SHOWTIME and fought several times on the network, so it’s not just a thing for me to say that I’m proud to be them. It means a lot more than just face value; it’s what in my heart because they’ve been with me for several years.

“We’re still recovering from the Canelo-Trout fight and now we’re bringing Knockout Kings II where we have three world title fights and I don’t know who is going to win. Will the fights go the distance? Probably not when you have these types of punchers. Who’s going to win the fights? I have no idea. Am I going to be in the front row? You bet.

“I’ve watched these guys on TV and I’m awed by the type of power that they have. Omar – I call him ‘Mini Mike Tyson’ – I hope he gives us two rounds so we can really appreciate the power that he has.”

MIKE BATTAH, President of Leija & Battah Promotions

“I want to thank Oscar De La Hoya, SHOWTIME and James, my partner, for putting this all together. It’s been a building process, but we’re building, we’re getting there and we’re excited.

“I would like to thank Jesus Soto Karass for helping raise money for breast cancer awareness. Please ask the public to give $10 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. We’re excited to help out and hope that we can raise money for this great charity.”

GREG ALVAREZ, Combative Sports Administrator, Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation

“I just want thank everybody who came here today, the fans and those who has spread the word around town. I want to say thank you to Mike and Jesse for making my life easier and making my life happier by bringing all these big fights to San Antonio.”

ABOUT “KNOCKOUT KINGS II”
“Knockout Kings II,” featuring former Two-Time Welterweight World Champion Andre Berto facing tough Mexican veteran contender Jesus Soto Karass in a 12-round main event for the vacant NABF Welterweight Championship, takes place Saturday, July 27 at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas. The event is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions and Leija & Battah Promotions and sponsored by Corona and AT&T. In the 12-round co-featured attractions, Weslaco, Texas’ undefeated rising star Omar Figueroa Jr. squares off against Japan’s Nihito Arakawa for the vacant WBC Interim Lightweight World Championship in a fight promoted in association with Teiken Promotions and undefeated power-puncher Diego Chaves faces fellow unbeaten knockout artist Keith Thurman for Chaves’ WBA Interim Welterweight World Championship in a fight promoted in association with KO International. The tripleheader will be broadcast live on SHOWTIME® at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT and will be available in Spanish via second audio programming (SAP). Preliminary fights will air on SHOWTIME EXTREME® at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast).

Tickets priced at $200, $100, $50, $25 and $10, plus applicable taxes, fees and services charges, are on sale now and are available for purchase at the AT&T Center box office, online at www.ticketmaster.com at www.ticketmaster.com and ATTCenter.com all Ticketmaster locations, by calling (800) 745-3000 or through Leija & Battah Promotions by calling (210) 979-3302 or emailing m@leijabattahpromo.com.

NEW YORK, July 23 – Big-time boxing hits Broadway on Monday, August 19 when the brand new Golden Boy Live!series premieres on FOX Sports 1, America’s new sports network,from Best Buy Theater in Manhattan with an exciting tripleheader. Headlining this groundbreaking event is top middleweight contender Danny Jacobs of Brooklyn facing former world title challenger Giovanni Lorenzo of Manhattan in a 10-round bout for the vacant WBC Continental Americas Middleweight Championship.

In the co-main event, the Bronx’s Eddie Gomez risks his perfect professional record in an eight-round welterweight match-up against Philadelphia veteran Steve Upsher Chambers.

Adding to the local New York City flavor is 2012 U.S. Olympian and Staten Island native Marcus Browne who will be featured in a televised fight against an opponent to be determined as well as bantamweight prospect and Brooklynite Claude Staten Jr. who will be featured on the non-televised portion of the fight card.

The event airs live on FOX Sports 1, marking the first of 24 Golden Boy Live! events televised by the network over the next year, bringing world class boxing into the living rooms of sports fans nationwide during primetime.

“The launch of FOX Sports 1 is a major event not only for boxing, but the sports world,” said Oscar De La Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. “Our goal at Golden Boy Promotions is to bring boxing into the homes of sports fans and with this new series, more people than ever will have access to these great fights.”

“FOX Sports 1 is thrilled to kick off its relationship with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions with an event of this magnitude,” said Patrick Crakes, FOX Sports SVP of Programming & Research. “This card shows just what Golden Boy can bring together, and being able to offer this kind of sports programming to the FOX Sports 1 prime time audience is an awesome opportunity.”

Highlighting the importance of the series’ debut, numerous stars from the boxing, entertainment and sports worlds are expected to attend including Oscar De La Hoya, future Hall of Famer and current IBF Light Heavyweight World Champion Bernard Hopkins and former Two-Time World Champion Paulie Malignaggi.

Jacobs vs. Lorenzo is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona and O’Reilly Auto Parts. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. ET with the first bell sounding at 8:00 p.m. ET. The FOX Sports 1 broadcast airs live at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.

Tickets, priced at $125, $60 and $35, plus applicable taxes, fees and service charges, are on sale now and available for purchase online at www.axs.com, by phone at 888-9-AXS-TIX (888-929-7849) and at the Best Buy Theater Box Office between 12:00 p.m. ET and 6:00 p.m. ET.

After surviving a harrowing bout with cancer, Brooklyn’s Danny “Miracle Man” Jacobs (25-1, 22 KO’s) made the comeback of a lifetime in 2012, returning to the ring to knock out Josh Luteran and Chris Fitzpatrick, but this inspirational 26-year-old won’t be satisfied until he has a world championship belt around his waist and a win on August 19 will move him even closer to his goal.

A native of the Dominican Republic now making his home in Manhattan, 32-year-old Giovanni Lorenzo (32-5, 24 KO’s) has made a name for himself as one the top middleweights in the world for years, challenging Sebastian Sylvester, Felix Sturm and Hassan N’Dam for the 160-pound championship. He has yet to secure a belt, making his bout against Jacobs a critical one as he looks to take his career to a new level.

Former amateur star Eddie Gomez (14-0, 9 KO’s) has had a phenomenal run as a professional thus far, winning all 14 of his bouts against increasingly more difficult competition. With five wins in 2012, the Bronx product has added two more wins to his ledger in 2013, knocking out Javier Gomez in March and shutting out Luis Hernandez in April.

Philadelphia’s Steve Upsher Chambers (24-2-1, 6 KO’s) is unbeaten in 20 of his last 22 bouts, with his only loss coming against former World Champion Luis Collazo in a hard-fought eight-round battle last October. Eager to get back into the ring and start a new winning streak, the 28-year-old veteran gets his chance on national television against Gomez on August 19.

Well on his way to becoming the best boxer ever produced by the borough of Staten Island, 2012 United States Olympian “Sir” Marcus Browne (5-0, 5 KO’s) has dominated everyone in his path since turning pro in November of 2012. Victorious in each of his five bouts, with all of those wins coming by way of knockout, the 22-year-old light heavyweight is coming off of a second-round technical knockout win over Ricardo Campillo in June that once again showed his power and poise in the ring.

The perfect example of New York’s claim as the world’s melting pot, Brooklyn’s Claude Staten Jr. (1-0) proudly represents his Portuguese, Chinese and Panamanian heritage every time he steps into the ring. A former New York and National Golden Gloves participant as an amateur, Staten took his talents to the pro game in March of 2013, impressing his hometown fans at Barclays Center with a shutout victory over Mike Hill.

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing,www.twitter.com/DanielJacobsTKO, www.twitter.com/eddiegomez718 and www.twitter.com/bestbuy_theater, follow the conversation using #GoldenBoyLive, become a fan on Facebook at Golden Boy Facebook Page and visit us on Instagram @GoldenBoyBoxing. For more information on FOX Sports 1 visit www.FOXSports.com/FOXSports1 and become a follower on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@FOXSports @FOXSports1 and @FOXSportsPR.

AS VEGAS, NEV. (June 7, 2013) — Legends MIKE TYSON, SUGAR RAY LEONARD and OSCAR DE LA HOYA head up the list to be feted at the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The star-studded inaugural class of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame will be officially inducted in a gala dinner on Saturday, August 10, at the Monte Carlo Resort & Casino.

Tickets for the event, ranging from $50 to $250, will go on sale on This Monday! June 10, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT at the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame website at http://nvbhof.com.

The 19 inductees represent some of the best in the sport’s glorious history in Nevada and includes 12 who are already in the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

The Hall’s board of directors selected the 19 enshrinees in eight categories: Nevada resident boxers; Non-Nevada resident boxers; Officials; Trainers; Promoters; Media; Executives; and Special Contributors.

“A true Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame has been long overdue, considering this state’s rich tradition in the sport,” NVBHOF founder and CEO Rich Marotta said. “The NVBHOF is ready to honor the significant contributors to boxing in Nevada. Our board of directors has been pointing to this night and is planning a gala, Las Vegas-worthy event. The Nevada boxing community comes together August 10.”

Some of boxing’s greatest champions and most well known names are among those who will be honored at the Monte Carlo.

Former undisputed heavyweight champion “Iron” Mike Tyson, former three-division world champion Mike “The Body Snatcher” McCallum and two-division world champion Diego “Chico” Corrales were chosen in the Nevada resident category.

The non-Nevada resident category is comprised of nothing but members of the International Boxing Hall of Fame: Former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes; 1976 Olympic gold medalist and multiple division world champion Sugar Ray Leonard; Julio César Chávez, México’s greatest boxer; and Oscar De La Hoya, boxing’s biggest pay-per-view star and a world title-holder in six weight classes.

The legendary Eddie Futch and Freddie Roach were chosen in the Trainers category. In the Officials category, open to both referees and judges, voters selected Mills Lane and Joe “Fair But Firm” Cortez.

Long-time Showtime and ESPN broadcaster Al Bernstein and former Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Royce Feour are the inductees in Media.

Bob Arum of Top Rank and Don King of Don King Productions, arguably the two greatest promoters in the sport’s history, are going in together in the Promoters’ division.

Two long-time contributors to the Nevada Athletic Commission, former executive director Marc Ratner and ex-commissioner Dr. James Nave, were the picks in the Executives division.

And in the Special Contributors class, chosen were MGM Grand owner Kirk Kerkorian and Las Vegas power broker Sig Rogich.

In addition to inducting its first class, the NVBHOF will announce selections for male and female professional Fighter of the Year from Nevada; its Nevada Fight of the Year; as well as its Nevada Prospect and Amateur of the Year.

Gold Circle Ringside VIP tickets are $250 apiece or $2,500 for a table of 10. The ticket includes dinner, preferred seating and other amenities to be announced shortly. Ringside tickets are $150 per ticket or $1,500 for a table of 10. It includes dinner and a seat for the gala. A limited number of $50 General Admission tickets that do not include dinner but will allow access to the gala, will also be available.

The Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit charity organization committed to helping boxing-related causes. In keeping with its mission, the NVBHOF will award its donations to several groups, organizations, clubs and schools working hard to promote the positive aspects of boxing.

You can “like” NVBHOF on Facebook (facebook.com/nvbhof) and follow it on Twitter (@nvbhof). For more information on the Hall of Fame, the induction ceremony or the Hall’s mission, phone 775-384-1903 or visit its website at http://nvbhof.com.

LOS ANGELES (May 13, 2013) – A fan-friendly, action-packed fight card highlighted by three important 12-round bouts which is presented by Golden Boy Promotions on Saturday, June 8, live on SHOWTIME (10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT) from The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., was formally announced by Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya today at La Fonda Restaurant in Los Angeles.

In what should be a slugfest in the main event on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING, hard-hitting, former WBA Super Lightweight World Champion and current No. 2 rated WBA welterweight contender Marcos “El Chino” Maidana (33-3, 30 KO’s), of Santa Fe, Argentina will defend his WBA Intercontinental Welterweight Championship against tough-as-nails upset-minded Josesito Lopez (30-5, 18 KO’s) of Riverside, Calif.

In co-featured 12-round fights, top-rated super welterweight contenders Alfredo “El Perro” Angulo (22-2, 18 KO’s), of Los Angeles by way of Mexicali, Mexico and Erislandy Lara (17-1-2, 11 KO’s), of Houston by way of Guantanamo, Cuba square off while and Demetrius “The Gladiator” Hopkins (33-2-1, 13 KO’s), of Philadelphia takes on promising, undefeated Jermell “Iron Man” Charlo (20-0, 10 KO’s), of Houston, Texas, for Hopkins’ USBA Junior Middleweight Championship and Charlo’s WBC Continental Americas Super Welterweight Championship.

Tickets priced at $150, $75, $50 and $25, plus applicable taxes, fees and services charges are available at AXS.com or by phone at 1-888-9-AXS-TIX (1-888-929-7849), as well as The Home Depot Center Box Office (Monday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. PT). VIP Suites are available by calling 1-877-604-8777. For more information on group discounts or VIP packages, please call 1-877-234-8425.

Live preliminary fights will be shown on SHOWTIME EXTREME at 8 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast).

See below for what the fighters, their camps and De La Hoya said on Monday:

MARCOS MAIDANA

“I know Josesito is a great fighter. I know he likes to stand and trade and fight. That’s what I do and that’s why it’s going to be such an exciting fight.

“My plan is to go toe-to-toe. I don’t know what Josesito is going to do, but that’s what I plan to do. Pressure is the key to the fight.

“I’m feeling great. I’ve been in Oxnard, California for over a month already. I love training there. The weather is great and it’s where my coach (Robert Garcia) is. It’s going to be a great fight and I’m going to defend the honor of Argentina.

“The 147-pound division is where I feel best. I didn’t feel that way at 140. Now I’m free and I can eat more. My body is different and you can see the definition.”

JOSESITO LOPEZ

“When you’re fighting a heavy puncher like Maidana, you have to be smart. The move up to 154 pounds helped me now that I’m back at 147. Now I feel I’m a true welterweight. I feel great in the gym; stronger and faster.

“I’m so excited about this fight and I’m the one receiving the punches. I can only imagine how excited the fans are. Years ago before I was at this level I thought, ‘Man, this would be an exciting fight. I would love to get in there and bang with him.’ Now we’re here. It’s a hell of a match-up. It could be the fight of the year.

“This is a fight I have to win. It’s a fight that keeps me on the map. This is where I want to be and I’m working my ass off.

“He’s a strong puncher and I like to think I have a little punch myself. In the ring I just have to be smart whether it’s defense on the inside or boxing on the outside. I have to be the smarter fighter and whatever works that’s what I’m going to have to do.

“We have to be smart and shoot our jab. We have to pick our spots and not let him. He’s an inside fighter and he likes to bang. Well, I like to bang too. I’ve got to be in a position where I want to be, not where he wants me to be.”

ALFREDO “EL PERRO” ANGULO

“This is my third fight after my time off and conditioning-wise I’m feeling like my old self, feeling like I used to feel. There’s no doubt I’ll be in better condition than I was for my last two fights. There was just too much time off. Now, I’m in a rhythm.

“It’s going to be a very good fight, the bull versus the matador. I have a lot of respect for Lara. He’s a really good fighter and he wants to show he’s the best, but he’s going to have to come out and fight.

“He may think he’s just going to box, but he’s going to fight.”

ERISLANDY LARA

“There’s always a lot at stake when I fight, so I know I can’t look ahead or take Angulo for granted. He is my total focus now. After I win on June 8; I can start thinking about a world title shot again.

“Angulo is a good fighter. I give him a lot of credit. He always comes to fight. I’ve worked very hard and am preparing for the best Angulo possible.

“The fact that I’m favored to win means nothing. Once the bell rings, it doesn’t matter what the odds are. It’s what you do in the ring that counts.

“Style-wise this is a perfect fight for me because Angulo likes to come forward. It’s the classic boxer versus the puncher. I expect to put on a boxing clinic, so you can expect a smart fight from me.

“Obviously, the most important thing is for me to win, but I want to put on a great show for all the fans.”

OSCAR DE LA HOYA

“We should have called this ‘High Stakes’ because you have the welterweight division where you have Floyd Mayweather. The winner between Marcos Maidana and Josesito Lopez automatically puts himself in line and at the front door knocking to fight the very best.

“This is how important this event is. This is high stakes here for everyone on this card. Saturday, June 8 will be explosive, that’s for sure.

“What’s most exciting for Alfredo Angulo’s team is that he’s just now putting everything together and really learning the craft of boxing under Virgil Hunter. It’s going to be very exciting to see him fight such an incredible fighter like Erislandy Lara.

“Stephen Espinoza (Executive Vice President and General Manager of SHOWTIME SPORTS) has now taken SHOWTIME to a whole new level. This is the home of boxing and it will continue to be the home of boxing for many years to come.”

KEN THOMPSON, Josesito’s Lopez’ Co-Promoter

“Here we go again…one more time in L.A. and in every city thanks to SHOWTIME. We have the best fighter in the world in Josesito Lopez, the ‘Riverside Rocky.’

“When Josesito and Marcos Maidana enter the ring for the main event on June 8, no judges will be needed. This fight will end with one great fighter laying in the middle of the ring, while the other great fighter will be standing and getting his hand raised in victory and that fighter is the ‘Riverside Rocky,’ Josesito Lopez.”

LUIS DECUBAS JR., Erislandy Lara’s Manager

“This is going to be a great fight. We’re happy to be on such a great card. Erislandy is ready. He knows he is in with a very tough, aggressive fighter.

“Angulo is a hungry and determined fighter, but so is Erislandy. We’re excited about fighting on June 8.”

ROBERT GARCIA, Marcos Maidana’s Trainer

“We’re training hard for this fight and we know what type of fight we have in front of us. We cannot take this fight lightly.

“We’ve gotten some great sparring in for this fight and I know Josesito and his coach have done the same. We’re actually pretty good friends with Henry (Ramirez). We just know this is a fight that fans are really going to enjoy.

“We know both fighters’ styles and we know this could turn out to be one of the best fights of the year. As everyone who has seen the last few of Maidana’s fights knows, he is starting to use his jab a little more and using a little more footwork, in and out, so we’re going to fight smart. I know this will be end up in a war and whoever is the best conditioned has the best chance to win.

“I fought most of my fights on SHOWTIME so I’m just so happy to be part of SHOWTIME again.”

HENRY RAMIREZ, Josesito Lopez’s Trainer

“Josesito has been living with me at my place the last few weeks. He wanted to do it and it was his idea. This way there are no distractions. Just eat, sleep and think boxing. It’s been working out great.

“The return to 147 pounds will do him a lot of good. I think the time off will do him a lot of good, too, but we didn’t really plan to be off this long.

“This fight, Josesito and Maidana, is a Fight of the Year candidate. Robert Garcia and I are good friends, but this is a sport and I know he has been preparing Maidana like I’ve been preparing Josesito.

“This will be a terrific fight.”

VIRGIL HUNTER, Alfredo Angulo’s Trainer

“I want to thank SHOWTIME and Golden Boy. This is going to be a great fight. We have great respect for Lara, who’s a great Cuban fighter, but we know what a big chance this is for us.

“I believe Angulo has been judged a little harshly; after all, he has only had two fights after spending nine months in detention. That’s tough for a fighter to be away that long. His first comeback fight lasted a minute. The last fight, he went 12 strong rounds and closed the show. He’ll be even better on June 8.

“I don’t think the styles will make a difference. The winner will be who wants it more. I expect Alfredo to hit another level. He’s prepared and excited to fight Lara.

“Don’t miss it. Tell a friend.”

Oscar De La Hoya

Thank you very much. MAY DAY is right around the corner. Obviously, you all know, Floyd Mayweather versus Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, which will be a 12 round fight for Mayweather’s WBC Welterweight World Championship, and the vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship.

We have a tremendous, tremendous lineup as we told everyone. From top to bottom, it’s really, really solid; exciting. The co-main event features Daniel Ponce de Leon versus Abner Mares. That will be a 12-rounder for Ponce de Leon’s WBC Featherweight world title. And also, after taking a nice little break after fighting five times last year, he’s back, the exciting, powerful machine, Leo Santa Cruz versus Alexander Munoz. That will be a 10-round fight for the vacant USBA Junior Featherweight title.

Also on the card, who will be opening up the pay-per-view telecast, will be a great fight that we have lined up thanks to Mayweather Promotions; his fighter J’Leon Love versus Gabriel Rosado, which should be an exciting 10-round vacant Middleweight NABF title fight. This fight is being held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, promoted by Mayweather Promotions and, yours truly, Golden Boy Promotions, sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly. Thank you very much to AT&T, once again, and Star Trek: Into Darkness, and Valvoline. This fight is being distributed by Showtime Pay Per View, which begins at 9:00 p.m. ET and 6:00 p.m. PT.

We are thrilled, like I said. Obviously, tickets are and have gone really fast; there’s only a few left. So whoever wants to make it to this event live, you can check it out at the MGM. We also have closed-circuit feed available at the Aria, at the Mandalay Bay, at the Mirage, Monte Carlo and New York, New York, which are priced at $50. So whoever hasn’t been down to a closed-circuit event, it really is an event. It’s like being there live. The atmosphere is unbelievable. It’s really worth the $50 that you’ll be paying.

Now, without further ado, I would like to introduce to you, he is the six-time and four division world champion, and he obviously has had tremendous wins. And most recently, he captured the boxing world’s attention by defeating a former Two-Time World Champion Andre Berto in November in 2012 in thrilling, thrilling fashion. An exciting 12-round, unanimous decision.

Now, obviously he’s in the fight of his life here with Floyd Mayweather. It’s a big opportunity and he’s ready for it. He’s ready for it and May 4th will be just another fight for Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. He’s a tremendous fighter; strong, fast, durable. He has a record of 31 and 1, with 18 knockouts, out of Gilroy, California, here is Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero.

Robert Guerrero

Thank you. Thank you, Oscar, for that. I just want to thank everybody that put this together, Golden Boy, Showtime, my team putting in the work; we’re ready to go.

Q

In the Berto fight, Berto fights a style that’s somewhat similar to Mayweather’s and he seemed to land the right uppercut quite a bit in the straight leg. What plans do you have for holding that punch?

Guerrero

You know, everybody’s a different fighter. You can’t compare Berto to Mayweather, so we’ve been working, we’ve been working on a lot of different things. You go back to the drawing board, you assess your performance the fight before and you work off of that and you start perfecting things, and that’s what we’re doing. We perfected a lot of different things that we’re going to be bringing in the ring and putting the defense together even more tighter, so we’re working on everything.

Q

Excellent. He hasn’t fought in a year, and I think only four times in about the last five or six years. Is there a chance he isn’t taking you seriously or how do you think he’s approaching you?

Guerrero

Oh, most definitely Floyd Mayweather’s taking me seriously. After the beating I put on Berto, you’ve got to take somebody seriously, because you know they come out to punish. So I know for sure Floyd Mayweather is taking me seriously. Especially being out for a whole year, you know, like he said, I mean, it’s been his longest training camp in a long time and he’s putting in the work and the time that he needs to be ready for the fight, but that isn’t going to make a difference, because I know his body size. You can see it. Being a whole year laid off, he’s going to feel the punches.

Q

Have you ever sat out a whole year and fought? And what would that be like?

Guerrero

Yeah, I’ve been out a whole year and fought, and jumped right in with a hard puncher and you can feel the punches different. So it takes a little time to shake that ring rust off.

Q

Does that suggest that you need to go after him early in the fight?

Guerrero

Oh, we’re going to go after him the whole fight. Whether the fight ends early or if it goes 12 rounds, we’re going to go after him the whole fight.

Q

Do you think like some people do right now that maybe – and I’m basing this off of Floyd’s last fight against Cotto – he got a little bit more than we’re used to see him. Do you think that maybe Floyd has slowed down just a little bit to where he might be a little bit easier to hit these days when he was, say, a couple, three years ago?

Guerrero

I think Floyd just didn’t take Cotto too serious. Knowing that Cotto’s slow on his feet, slow hands, I think he overlooked him a bit. But, you know, Floyd Mayweather’s a very sharp fighter and a very smart guy. He made the adjustments and got the job done. So I know Floyd’s going to be ready to go. You can’t underestimate him and you can’t look past anything he brings, because, like I said, if he is slowing down, his slower is faster than almost every other fighter out there.

Q

What do you think about a quote from Floyd referring to you as a hypocrite? I don’t know if you know about that; he was talking about the arrest that you took. Any thoughts on that?

Guerrero

Yeah, you know, we’re all hypocrites. Everyone, you know, if you’re a perfect person, you wouldn’t need Jesus Christ. It just goes to show how much he keeps his head in the Bible and he reads the Bible and how much he believes to call somebody a hypocrite. It’s laughable.

Q

Has this unfortunate incident that happened, has it messed with your head at all as you’re trying to train knowing that you still have to go to court for this whole thing?

Guerrero

No, I’m ready to go. You know, there’s nothing stopping me from winning this fight. All the focus is there. I’m in training camp, I’m ready to go, that’s the bottom line.

Q

Richard Schaefer said that you had the gun with you in New York because going to a shooting range is a hobby and it’s something you like to do in the spare time and kind of blow off steam. Can you comment on that at all and just kind of, you know, why you had it with you?

Guerrero

Yeah, you know what, I’m only going to answer boxing questions and that’s it, so, sorry.

Q

I know you’re training a lot around Mt. Charleston. What do you enjoy most about that? What do you get out of it and what’s, maybe if you can kind of comment on how that contributes to your endurance and that sort of thing.

Guerrero

Well, the top of Mt. Charleston, it tops out like at 10-11,000 feet elevation, so you’re getting the best of both worlds. You’re getting a great run, you add the elevation, it’s great for your endurance. It’s like being out …. We’re out in the farm town and you get out in the country, it reminds you of home.

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Q

Do you think that Floyd Mayweather really means the derogatory things that he says about you in [All Access] or is it just to hype the show?

Guerrero

You know, Floyd’s going to be Floyd. That’s part of his game, just getting under your skin and trying to get you off your game, but it ain’t working. So, he’s in for a fight and he knows he is.

Q

And now that you’re in Vegas and all that other stuff is behind you, is everything completely on schedule here as we approach one week before the big day?

Guerrero

Oh, everything’s great, everything’s going good; I’m ready to go, feeling great. The only thing now is just winning the fight.

Q

Last year I know your publicist, he was campaigning hard for a fight with Floyd Mayweather right around this time. I just want to know what has happened if, I don’t want to say if Floyd called your bluff, but if he granted you the fight, how do you think you would have performed last year as opposed to how ready you are right now?

Guerrero

I’m always ready to fight. No matter what fight or fighter it is. Watch my past fights, even the Berto fight; hey, I’m coming to fight all the time. So, I would have been ready then. But I am really ready now. I was ready then, it’s just now I’m even more ready because I had a fight to break in at 147 pounds. He should have picked the fight a year ago.

Q

Do you think it’s more advantageous that you did in fact get the chance, not only to fight welterweight, but to prove to the world that you are actually one of the best welterweight’s in the world?

Guerrero

Oh yeah, most definitely. I was 135 pounds fighting at 47 and now I have field in solid to 147 pounds, so that will make a big difference.

Q

When you were starting out with your older brother and Fernando and the group at the potato shed, being a nine year old kid and showing promise, can you have imagined where you are now, what’s happening right this moment?

Guerrero

As soon as you step into the boxing gym, your goals as an amateur boxer is to be the best fighter you can be, to go to the Olympics, become professional and become a world champion, so it’s always on your mind. And growing up as a fighter, I mean, every fighter grows up with no doubt in their mind they’re going to be a champion and they’re going to work hard for it. And, you know, we’ve always pictured it and now here it is.

Q

And what does it mean to be from Gilroy, and you stayed there even though you’ve made it in your career, you stayed with your roots and stayed with your family and stayed with your friends where nothing’s changed. What does it mean to represent Gilroy against Mayweather?

Guerrero

It means a lot, because I’m from an agricultural town, all the areas around are agricultural and it’s part of our heritage, growing up in the farms and farm working. So it means a lot, it means a lot, especially fighting Floyd Mayweather and beating him on Cinco de Mayo weekend, because it’s a holiday that’s well celebrated and that will be for our Hispanic roots.

Q

Okay, Robert, now you are a very spiritual person. How has your spirituality played a part in your boxing career?

Guerrero

You know, it plays a big part. Not just in boxing, it plays a big part in my life. You know, outside of the ring, with my family, raising my kids in church, believing in Jesus Christ, it’s a big part of my life and that’s what guides my whole life. That goes through my training camp, boxing, being in the ring. It really is the number one thing in my life.

Q

Now you fought Orlando Salido, who was a pressure fighter, you fought Andre Berto who represents power and speed, you fought warriors such as Katsidis and boxers such as Escobedo and Casamayor. And then there were these hard to deal with styles, such as Jason Litzau and they weren’t easy to deal with. I already believe that you are mentally strong, which is an advantage that most of Floyd’s opponents haven’t had. Does fighting so many different styles along with that mentality, do you believe that makes you the optimum to give Floyd his first loss?

Guerrero

Oh, most definitely. I mean, you hit it right on. Having the proper experience to be in the ring helps build a fighter the right way. Then you get the chance to fight different types of styles, so you have different experiences. Then when a fighter gets to the top they’re ready for it and they stay there. Having the mental experience outside of the ring, inside of the ring, putting all that together as a package, it’s a deadly force.

Q

You are a six-time champion in four different weight classes. That’s a marvelous accomplishment and not many people knew that about you coming in. Do you ever fight with a chip? I mean, do you ever feel underappreciated by people who just don’t know your accomplishments?

Guerrero

No, I don’t. You know, all I do is go out there and fight, set my heart and fight the best I can. If it gets recognized, it gets recognized; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But you know what, I know I put God first and he’s blessed me to be in this position. And being in this position, it’s incredible. It’s incredible and it truly is a blessing, and it’s helps me take full advantage of it. After this fight, everybody will know the accomplishments that I have, especially after beating Floyd Mayweather.

Q

You talked a little bit about what it would be like for living on the farm and winning this fight. When you sit by yourself and you dream about beating Floyd Mayweather, tell us a little bit about the inside of what The Ghost feels, the excitement of thinking about beating Floyd Mayweather.

Guerrero

You know, it’s just the opportunity of a lifetime. To be in the sport that I’m in and to be at the top of the game, it’s just a feeling that you have to experience to know how it feels. So, I’m just very blessed and I just can’t wait until after the fight to thank Jesus Christ for blessing me with this huge, huge opportunity.

Q

Now you said you have to know, you have to have that experience to know how it feels. Do you feel more pressure than usual going into this fight?

Guerrero

No, you know what? I haven’t felt that kind of pressure at all. So, you know, being by my wife’s side while she died of cancer, that’s pressure. That’s a lot of pressure, stress. It will break you down. So, coming to this fight, I mean, it’s a blessing, it’s a blessing and there isn’t any pressure there.

Q

You talked a little bit about Floyd being Floyd promoting the fight. When you look back on it was there anything he did that got to you, got to your family?

Guerrero

No, not at all. He can talk, he can say this and that, do whatever he wants, it just doesn’t get to me. It doesn’t get to me because I’m ready for this. I’m mentally ready for this, mentally focused. I’ve been through far worse things than standing in front of Floyd or listening to him talk and getting mad about it. I’m a very grateful and thankful guy, I’m blessed to be in this position, I’m blessed to have my wife here today. I just thank God every day. And by Floyd talking and saying whatever he said and acting the way he acts, it doesn’t bother me at all because I live my life one way and he lives his another way.

Q

Anything that you’ve done to Floyd that you felt like you could look at your wife and say, “We got him.”

Guerrero

No, not at all. You know, I really don’t try to talk down on him or try to get him off his game. Hey, you know what, I know he’s one of the masters at the mental game on breaking guys down and he probably could see right through anything. So, he knows that I’m ready to go and I’m going to go in there and fight and that’s all that matters.

Q

Listen, Robert, when you first got the fight, and I know there was a call with some of the reporters right when you signed for the fight and it was announced, and how you spent some time answering questions talking about one of the things you had said was that you thought that Floyd, at this stage of his career being his age and the layoff and maybe the jail sentence and all that, that he was, I believe the term you used was “right for the picking.” Do you still believe that? I never got the clear answer at that time. When you said that, what sorts of things were you thinking about that led you to believe that this might be the right time to go get Floyd who’s been so flawless for so many years in his boxing?

Guerrero

That’s the way I think about every fighter when they set a fight with me. You know, they’re right for the picking. And I truly believe God puts people in front of you for a reason and God put him in front of me for a reason and I’m going to beat him. So, you know, Floyd Mayweather having a year off and being in jail and stuff like that, it takes a toll on you. No matter what you do, you do have a little ring rust. It’s different from training and sparring, then getting in the fight, so that ring rust is always there until you actually get in that ring and shake it off.

Q

You’re right about that, but he seems to be different from most fighters from the standpoint that he’s had lengthy layoffs. So I wonder, have you watched recent bouts, maybe the Cotto fight, maybe some other fights, and is there anything that you’ve seen specifically in how he’s fought that leads you to believe that maybe the age or the rust is sort of going to catch up to him a little bit?

Guerrero

No when he’s had those year layoffs and came back, everybody was handpicked. He picked a small guy with Marquez. He took Cotto, he knew he could get away with the foot speed and the hand speed. Victor Ortiz, he just took advantage and took the shot, which if you’re so confident, you wouldn’t need to take a shot like that. So, like I said before, he’s going to be fighting Robert Guerrero, and like I said, everybody that signs with me, I think they’re right for the picking because I come to fight.

Q

Obviously you have the record and the resume that you have, but what’s the one thing you think that you do specifically that you think others that have tried have been unsuccessful doing at this point because you’ve been able to maintain that record that you’re going to be better at doing? Whether it’s just power or speed or pressure or whatever the case may be, what in your mind is your greatest asset going into this matchup?

Guerrero

Staying mentally strong and keeping the game plan together, and also being able to change the game plan during the fight when I need to, to make those adjustments. A lot of these other guys weren’t able to do that.

Q

You’ve been asking for this fight for a long time and as opposed to when you were asking for the fight with Marquez, you really, really poured it on and you were very aggressive. Almost to the point of it was almost vicious, and that’s a rare side of you that I don’t see all the time. What is it about this particular fight and this particular fighter that gets under your skin or really gets you charged up? What is it?

Guerrero

It’s not getting under the skin or anything, it’s just wanting to be the best in the sport, wanting to be at the top. With guys like Marquez and Juan Diaz and all these guys that I’ve called down and I’ve been in line to fight, this is the guy. This is the guy. So he’s the man to beat and he’s the man that if you beat him, you’re on top. So we had to attack it aggressively and really push hard. With everybody else, with Marquez, it was win this fight and …and that never happened. And so we had to really push hard. And wanting to fight back to be the best in boxing, hey, we had to do what we had to do.

Q

Robert, a lot of guys are very, have faith, deep faith, and you talk about yours. When you say God put you in this position to humble Floyd, why do you think it’s you as opposed to anyone else? Is it proof of the way you live? Why you specifically?

Guerrero

Not just to humble Floyd, but to humble the boxing world. You get a lot of people out there that think Floyd’s like a god, the way he acts, the way he lives, the way he spends money, the way he boasts about stuff; you get everybody thinking that he’s unstoppable, that nobody could beat him. That with Floyd, there’s no blueprint to beat him. You can’t break him down. But you know what? Being a big believer in God, there’s a blueprint for everybody. There’s a way to beat anything. There’s a way to conquer anything. You put God first, then nothing’s stopping you. That’s what I say, God puts people in front of you for a reason and He puts you in front of people for a reason, and God has me here for a reason.

I look back at my whole career, my whole life, the trials and the tribulations I’ve been through, been right there at the forefront, to be able to become something huge in boxing and I’ve always had to drop two steps back and go a different route. But I’ve always knew that there’s a positive and I’ve always looked at, you know what, it’s a blessing in disguise with whatever happens – the injuries, my wife getting sick – it’s God putting you through the fire to refine you, so when He puts you in that moment, you’re ready to take off and glorify Him. And this is the moment right here. This is the moment, with a guy that nobody thinks that can’t be beat; where everybody’s looking, oh, he’s unstoppable, he’s the best ever, blah, blah, blah, this and that. It’s time, it’s time. God’s putting me in this position for a reason and God’s groomed me and prepped me for this time to take over boxing.

That’s why it’s like a modern day David and Goliath. You got David, who God anointed him and put him through the fire, who took on bears and lions and tigers, wolves, and nobody recognized it. And when it came time to fighting Goliath, everybody thought he was unbeatable. And David came along, took him on and slayed him with a slingshot and some pebbles. That’s why I say, God’s put me in this position for a reason.

Q

Last question is southpaws, two southpaws that have given Floyd trouble, and I’m sure you’ve taken note of this, were DeMarcus Corley and Zab Judah. Do you see anything in the trouble they gave him and is there something even more different about you that can capitalize and kind of finish the job?

Guerrero

Oh definitely the southpaw side gives him trouble. If DeMarcus Corley and Zab Judah didn’t get tired, they were winning that fight and I believe that. I’m ready for this. I’ve had the right fights. I was built the right way. I’ve had the right experience. I’ve been there with a bunch of different styles. I’ve been in there with lefties, a lot of them; I’ve been in with a bunch of different power punchers, prowlers, boxers, sharp guys. But as I say, what I’ve been through, God’s prepped me up for this and here it is.

Q

Mayweather being worried has been well documented in the media. What is it that you feel is of most concern to Team Mayweather?

Guerrero

That he has a young, hungry guy in front of him that can fight and make adjustments just like him. So, he knows he’s there for a fight and he knows come fight night that I’m not backing down.

Q

Over the years, as you’ve moved up in weight, you’ve carried your power very well. Right off the top of your head, which fighter do you feel you have hit the hardest in the ring?

Guerrero

I’m not even sure. I hit these guys. I just hit them and hit them, so it’s hard to say. It’s hard to say. Probably maybe Michael Katsidis. I mean, I hit him with some shots and he kept walking right into them. So, I’d probably have to say him.

Q
Hey, Robert, this is the biggest fight of your life. We already talked about the distractions that you had going into this fight, and in the build-up show on Showtime, saw you get a little snappy when you weren’t able to get your training in. Have you been able to do all the training that you needed to do and how has it been different training for this kind of fight than it has for your past fights?

Guerrero

Yes, I got all the training in. It’s funny to see the show on All Access. The two days I was talking about I hadn’t trained was the weekend, so it was Monday and it was time to get busy. So I was just making sure that we were going to be on training schedule and weren’t going to let none of the media get in the way. So all the training’s been done; I’m ready to go; I’m ready to go right now. Now it’s just winding down until fight night.

Q

You also said that you’ve been wanting this fight for two or three years, so you’ve been thinking about this a lot. What have you seen in Floyd that gives you so much confidence that you’re the man that’s going to take his O away? I heard Oscar talking about the jab is so important. What is your plan, without giving so much of a secret away, what’s your way of fighting Floyd that you have in mind?

Guerrero

You know, being smart in the ring, fighting an intelligent fight. A lot of these guys just come in, they either lose their head or they’re mad at him and all game plans go out the window and also, being able to make the adjustments in the ring. Having the experiences that I’ve had throughout my boxing career and the different weight classes with guys who are fast, guys who are slick, guys who put pressure, guys who are boxer punchers, just having all the experience and putting it all together and being able to recognize to make those adjustments in the ring.

Q

I’ll piggyback off of one statement you said first off. I take it that you do see this fight as a real-life David and Goliath type struggle?

Guerrero

Yes, sir. I do see it as that. A lot of athletes say, “Oh, David and Goliath,” but a lot of people don’t look at the story. They don’t look at the backstory, they just look at when David slew Goliath. That’s all they look at. They don’t look at the whole story, what David’s been through, the preparations he’s been through to be ready for that moment to slay Goliath. People don’t look at that stuff. If you look at my career, you go back and look at everything I’ve been through, inside the ring, outside of the ring, it all leads you up to be ready for moments like this.

Q

So I know you’ve moved up two weight classes. You fought two guys who were expected to be stronger than you and you pretty much manhandled them in both of your fights with them, so do you think that your hand speed and your strength will be a surprising factor for Floyd in this fight?

Guerrero

Oh yeah. It’s going to be a whole lot different for him fighting a southpaw, having quick hands, being able to make adjustments. And also, too, being body strong. A lot of people underestimate how strong I am in the ring. As you’ve seen with Berto, you’ve seen with guys like Michael Katsidis, people underestimate my strength and it really is a big downfall for them. It really makes a difference when you have a strong body, you have fast hands and you have heavy hands, and you also have the skill and the talent to put stuff together and to change different game plans and do different things in the ring and be able to change it up, it really is a game changer for a fighter.

Q

Are you concerned with any tactic, dirty tactics or any other kind of tactics from Floyd? Do you think that they’re concerned with anything like that coming from you?

Guerrero

No, there’s no concern on any dirty tactics. If they get dirty, oh well, they get dirty, but that’s the last thing you think about. That’s the problem with a lot of fighters, they get caught into thinking, oh, this guy’s going to hit me with his elbow or he’s going to use this or that, and that’s all they’re thinking about and it really throws their game off instead of thinking about their game plan and getting to work and doing what they’ve got to do. So I don’t have any no concerns about anything like that. If he has concerns, he better be really concerned.

Swanson

Okay, great. That was our last question for Robert Guerrero and now we are going to transition over to Floyd Mayweather. So, Robert, any last comments before we let you go?

Guerrero

No, I’m just ready to go. Can’t wait until fight night. That’s it. Thank you, God bless and bye.

Floyd Mayweather

I’m on Kelly.

Swanson

Okay, thanks Floyd. Okay, so now I’m going to turn it over to Leonard Ellerbe, Chief Executive Officer of Mayweather Promotions, to make the introduction for Floyd. Leonard?

Leonard Ellerbe

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you all for joining the call today. This has been a fabulous promotion thus far. The promotion is definitely in full swing. You had a chance to see the various platforms we have in place-obviously working with Showtime/CBS. You’ve had a chance to see 30 Days in May. You’ve had a chance to see two episodes of All Access and coming this Saturday on CBS at 8 p.m. Pacific and Eastern you’ll get a chance to see Floyd’s documentary called “Mayweather”, which will be fabulous. With the promotion in full swing and-

Mayweather

Hey L, I didn’t mean to cut you off. Don’t forget about All Access tonight also. Check that out.

Ellerbe

Yes. Be sure to check out All Access tonight. It’s going to be a great show. With that being said, training camp has been great thus far. This has been a phenomenal camp. Floyd has really stepped up. I think you guys will get a chance to see at the weigh in this is the best shape that I personally have seen Floyd in in his whole career. He’s ready to go. His team is ready to go so come May 4th, look for another great Mayweather performance.

So, obviously without further ado, eight time World Champion in five different weight classes, “Money” Mayweather.

Mayweather

Hey, how everybody doing? First, I want to start off by saying I want to thank everybody on this phone for basically helping with the promotion for this fight. I want to thank all the writers that have been writing stories. It’s been a hell of a promotion. I want to thank Kelly Swanson, Leonard Ellerbe, Golden Boy Promotions. I want to thank Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya. I want to let you guys know you guys done a tremendous job and the Golden Boy team and the Golden Boy staff. And Mayweather staff and Mayweather team have done a tremendous job.

Kelly, once again, thank you. I like the way Kelly Swanson-she wrote me letters every day and thank you. You’re the best publicist in the world. I’m not just saying that. I don’t know about anybody else’s publicist that wrote them every day when they were locked up.

And the media-thank you guys for just the stories over the years, for helping me take things to that next level. You guys have been brilliant. You guys have done a phenomenal job and May 4th is another Mayweather week here-May Day. Mayweather versus Guerrero-and I just want everybody to tune in. If you can’t be there, you must buy Pay-Per-View. And what else can I say? It’s boxing. Questions.

Q

I know your camp-you talked about when you announced the fight that your father was going to be training you again for this fight, that Roger would be there also. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how it came to be that your dad is back with you-I’m sure everybody’s happy to hear that-and talk about what roles each of them will have working together with in preparation for your fight with Robert.

Mayweather

Well, my dad, of course-he’s a boxing wizard and Roger’s a boxing wizard, so you can’t go wrong with either guy. My dad is the main trainer and of course, like I said before, it’s not like I fired anyone. It’s just that my dad’s a little sick, but he’s a lot healthier than Roger is.

Roger’s very, very-his health is not at its best right now and my main focus is I want a guy that’s in my corner that’s sharp and healthy. But he still works day in and day out with me every day as far as and keeping me sharp. But my dad is the main trainer and Roger still works me day in and day out, but fight night, my dad will be working my corner.

Q

And will Roger be in your corner also?

Mayweather

No, I don’t think Roger will be in my corner. I don’t need both in my corner, but both guys are my trainers of course, my dad is the head guy in my corner.

Q

So did you make that decision besides the health issues that your uncle has been having, did you have some sort of revelation as you grow older you wanted to be closer with the family, bring them back in? I mean, your issues are well documented. We saw some of the blowouts that you had in the training camp before-some of the previous fights. And now it’s just-

Mayweather

Well, my thing is trying to leave all of the negative things behind me and trying to focus on the positive and positive thing for me is just going to the gym every day, doing what I’m supposed to do and working hard to be victorious. You know what I’m saying? Far as me talking about what me and my dad-the argument we had in the past or the difference my dad and my uncle had in the past-that’s the past. That’s why we call it the past because we try to leave that in the past and focus on the future and the future should be bright and at this point in time, everything is going the way it should go.

Q

I know it’s probably a sensitive topic, but everybody knows that you spent a couple of months over the summer incarcerated because of the issues that happened. I’m just wondering if you could talk a little bit about when you’re in the middle of doing that-I mean, you know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and you’re getting out in a certain period of time. But I’m sure it’s not easy to be in that situation to begin with even when you know that there’s an end in sight. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what you would do during the course of a day and your reflections on what was happening and maybe thinking about your boxing future and how it maybe had changed you as a person to where you are today as you get ready for this fight.

Mayweather

It’s just an obstacle that was in my way. The only thing you can do when you’re locked up is just do push-ups and read and write-write your fans and write to your loved ones. That’s all I really did. So I think what I thought about every day-I thought about my children. I thought about my family. Of course, thought about my career and I’m happy to be home.

Q

Can you express in a manner in how it may have changed you at all?

Mayweather

Well, I mean it just-anybody should know-your freedom is extremely important. There’s nothing more important than freedom. Once you lose your freedom, you understand that. Freedom is very, very important.

Q

Earlier on in your career, you had your uncle Jeff Mayweather assisting Roger with you training. Do you still talk with Uncle Jeff these days and how’s he doing?

Mayweather

Oh, I talk with Jeff on a regular. What my Uncle Jeff is doing now-he’s a trainer that’s on the rise-my Uncle Jeff. He’s training a lot of fighters-not just in the sport of boxing, but he’s also trained a lot of MMA guys. So, he’s very, very busy in today’s time. I see him- I saw him yesterday actually at the boxing gym. He was there and he comes to my every day and works with fighters. So, he’s doing good. His health is good. I’m happy as long as he’s happy.

Q

Floyd, you have adopted Las Vegas as your home. However, you are originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan and of course, in the first episode of All Access it showed you taking the trip back to your home time. Would you consider fighting at Grand Rapids once more before your career is over with?

Mayweather

As of right now, I can’t say what the future holds, but- As of right now, I’ve got to be loyal to who I’m with and MGM Grand is who I’m with. That’s my home and that’s where I love to perform. I can’t know what the future holds for Floyd Mayweather. I’ve been to Grand Rapids in the past and we’ve done some record-breaking numbers, but as of right now, it’s all about the MGM Grand.

Q

Last week we were talking and you talked about being the face of boxing and trying to set an example for your fighters that are in your promotion team. Could you elaborate a little bit about those responsibilities and why you’re taking it so seriously at this stage of your career to set that-?

Mayweather

Well, you know I only have 30 months left, so I want to just help clean the sport up. What I think is really, really great is that how Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions can sit down and do business-sit down and do business-and nobody worries about who’s getting what and make sure that the main thing is what everybody-

What Mayweather Promotions tries to focus on is letting a fighter win. It’s about the fighter winning because the fighter is the talent. The fighter’s the talent. The fighter’s taking all the risk. So we want the fighter to win, but I’m saying like in the past when you used to see Don King and Bob Arum not really see eye-to-eye. Well Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions-we communicate. We talk and we see eye-to-eye.

Like I said before, Mayweather Promotions-we’ve got to be a game changer. We want to be positive … together with any company that’s willing to sit down and negotiate and talk and be on the same level as us because that’s what it’s about in business. But, it’s all about the talent. My main focus is helping guys get to that next level. If we can help guys go to their next level and hopefully someday surpass me that’s whatever we’re trying to do.

Q

I believe on tonight’s All Access show you’re going to be referring to Robert Guerrero as a hypocrite in light of his gun arrest. Can you elaborate on that a little bit for us?

Mayweather

Well, Robert Guerrero was saying that I basically-money is my God. He’d been saying money is my God and I praise money. And you look at the beginning of my career, you know I always gave thanks to God and you go back to the beginning of my career. I’ve always given thanks to God just for blessing me with the ability that I have, blessing me with the talent that I have.

But, like I said before, this is not about religion. You know what I’m saying? What a person does or doesn’t believe in God-this is not about that. This is about two fighters going out there, testing their skills against one another. That’s what this is about.

You know, you’ve seen the story about his wife with cancer and basically I’m not here to talk disrespectful about anybody’s wife, I’m not here to talk disrespectful about nobody’s religion, because I’m not about that. I support different causes. I support breast cancer and I give back to the less fortunate and I don’t have nothing negative to say about this man’s wife. I don’t have anything negative to say about his religion.

The only I was saying’ was basically on one hand you’re trying to be a role model for children at school. You say you’re going to a school. Then you’re going to the 700 Club. But then as you look closely you see he has Marilyn Monroe on the wall in his house and then he’s driving a truck all over somebody’s lawn.

And then a little while later after leaving the school and leaving the 700 Club this guy is going through the airport with a gun and then they were basically making jokes about me, making fun of me, talking about that Floyd Mayweather couldn’t do his time. I could do my time, but who wants to lose their freedom? There’s nothing cool about losing their freedom. Of course I didn’t want to lose my freedom.

But like I said before, what goes around comes around. They were talking trash about me, very, very bad. Joking about me going to jail. You know? It’s time for him to do his time. So basically, like I said before, he had an opinion and I had an opinion and that’s the only way I feel. And I always said, I’m only human. I went out there before and said I’m only human. I contradicted myself. We all have contradicted ourselves because we are human. But like I said, nobody’s perfect. We all make mistakes.

Q

Robert seems to think that maybe-he said, “Having a year off and being in jail could take a toll on Floyd Mayweather.” What are your thoughts on that?

Mayweather

If that’s the way to psych yourself out, to build this confidence, then more power to him. Me, myself, I’m in tiptop shape. I’m in tiptop shape, tiptop condition. I’ve been in the gym working hard, working hard. So if that’s the way to psych yourself out, if that’s the way that he can get himself mentally prepared then more power to him.

Q

Just to follow up on that previous question then. So you don’t feel there’s going to be any rust after not fighting for a year? You think he’s wrong? Do you still feel unbeatable?

Mayweather

I mean of course I feel unbeatable. I mean of course I’m in the sport to go down as the best. I’m in the sport to go down as the best. I’m not going into a fight thinking that I’m beatable. Anything is possible. I’m just saying it might. But as far as my career thus far, I feel what I’m capable of doing. I feel that I can adapt.

And I think you don’t just get to this level, you just don’t get to the level, you just don’t get the pinnacle by not facing and fighting the best competition. I just feel like I was before my time. I beat everybody, I beat everybody in the 90s and I beat everybody early on in the 2000s. Now here we go 17 years later. Like I said, my main focus is to win. I focus on winning and I’m always going to be able to control the tempo of any fight because of my experience.

Q

So you don’t have any concerns about the rust, the so-called rust?

Mayweather

Well, like I said, I’ve took a long time off before. I took a long time off before. This is not my first time taking a year off. This is not my first time taking a couple years off. You know, I just call it a vacation. I think the body needs time to heal. The body needs time to rejuvenate. The body needs rest.

Q

[Guerrero] has said God put him in this position to humble you. What do you make of the notion that he says God put him in this position?

Mayweather

I mean I can’t even comment on it. Like I said before, I mean, once again he believes in God. I believe in God. This is not about-this fight is not about church. This fight is not about being a Catholic, being a Christian, being a Jew, being a Muslim. This is about two fighters competing, testing their skills against one another. That’s what it’s about.

Q

The guys who, in the past, have chose to come and fight you, to test you, Ricky Hatton, Diego Corrales, Arturo Gatti, more or less hastened their demise in the fight, got their faces cut up. Cotto had success with that. A large part of that, was that you chose to fight him, stand and fight him more. Do you think he has any option-in know he has some boxing skills, but you think he has any option other than to come to you and fight?

Mayweather

That’s been everybody’s game plan. Just like I know and just like you know, everybody said, “We’ll keep a lot of pressure on Mayweather.” That’s been everybody’s game plan, to keep pressure. You’ve been covering me for I don’t know how many years and everybody’s game plan has been to keep pressure/throw a lot of punches. So like I said before, as long as everybody’s got the same game plan I’m gonna keep having the same game plan.

Q

[Guerrero] had said that he’s fought southpaws that gave you trouble, Corrales and Zab Judah, if he anything like them or-he said southpaw style gives you trouble?

Mayweather

Last time I checked I was 43-0. I don’t think he’s a better boxer than Zab Judah. He’s not faster than Zab Judah. I don’t think he faced the competition that Zab Judah has faced. As far as Corrales, I don’t think-he doesn’t punch as hard as Corrales. I don’t think he’s a harder puncher than Corrales. And we’ll just have to see how the fight plays out.

You guys have covered-everybody’s that’s on this conference call has covered Floyd Mayweather for many, many years. Everybody had a game plan. Everybody game plan was to throw a lot of punches and keep pressure.

But we’ll see how the fight plays out. Everybody has a game plan and my game plan is to just adjust and adapt once I get in that squared circle. But once again, everybody got to adjust and adapt to me because I control the tempo always.

Q

Let me try to rephrase it. Do you feel like you’re in more control now? For most, it just seems like it has a different feel to it. It’s not just Floyd Mayweather fighting in Golden Boy Promotions. It’s not Mayweather Promotions. You’re not just a part of it. Mayweather Promotions is a focal point. It just seems like you have more control on both sides. Would you say-?

Mayweather

It’s more like basically the experience, being around the fight game for so long and just being out here, just coming up with different creative ways to take your fight to the next level. I say the next level as far as the next level I’m always trying to do a record-breaking things.

What’s crazy is I got another documentary coming out this Saturday on CBS called “Mayweather,” and I don’t think you have never seen a fighter that had three shows, three different shows, three different shows for one fight, not three differently completely shows. I’ve got two documentaries and then we’ve got All Access and All Access comes on four or five times and we’ve got two documentaries.

Like I said before, we’re always trying to record-breaking things, doing things outside of the box, but these creative things don’t-my team also has a creative mind. Even Ms. Jackson, she comes up with some ideas and different things. I think that on 30 Days In May she was marvelous.

Q

I know you keep saying you’ve got 30 months left to do it. What do you feel that you have left to do in this sport that you haven’t already done?

Mayweather

Just finish. After this fight I’ve got five more fights. That’s all I got to do. Finish putting them stamps on my legacy.

Q

Is it about wanting to fight anyone or just the matter of, like you said, just kind of recreating the game in those 30 months?

Mayweather

I just want to stay active and continue to go out there to get the fans excitement. Go out there and fight. There’s no specific opponent, because once again, I’ve earned my stripes a long time ago. I’ve proved myself a long time ago. I don’t want to point at one certain guy. “I want to fight this guy. I want to fight that guy.” Like I said, I just take one fight at a time. At this particular time, Robert Guerrero is the guy in front of me. Once I face him then we’ll be ready to fight again in September.

Q

I have just one question then I’ll let everyone else get to it. I brought this up earlier, a year ago Robert Guerrero, he was campaigning hard to try to get at you. Was he even on your radar at the time? I know you were looking at Cotto, but before you agreed to fight Cotto, were you in the thought of fighting Robert Guerrero at that time and what changed your mind?

Mayweather

I’ve got to answer this the right way, the way Leonard Ellerbe wants me to answer it. It’s kind of hard to answer this question. Leonard did let me know the guy-I asked Leonard. He said he did call my name about a year ago, but I didn’t know who he was a year ago. I probably heard of his name, probably heard the name in passing but really never knew who the guy was. They said he fought on my under card when I fought Baldomir. He said he fought on my under card. But he looked good in the fight against Andre Berto. He went out there. He did what he had to do and he fought hard.

Q

A lot of people kind of look back to the fight with Miguel Cotto and pinpoint the fact that you were willing to fight more in the ropes than you generally did kind of in past fights. And you say Guerrero will probably have the same game plan. What would you say is kind of his weakness? What would you say his weakness is? He’s going to try to get you in the ropes, but what would-?

Mayweather

The difference between Miguel Cotto and Robert Guerrero is Miguel Cotto has a lot more experience than he [Guerrero] has. Miguel Cotto came into the fight as a super middleweight at 168. I came in 147. So I was in a super middleweight fighting a welterweight. They’re two total different fighters. Miguel Cotto is a much bigger puncher. So right there that’s the difference in those few things I just told you between the two.

Q

Floyd, just on a previous call Robert said that you handpicked your opponents and an accusation for your opponents actually make. If that’s the case, then you’ve handpicked Robert Guerrero. Let’s just say that you did, obviously we kind of assume that you didn’t, what would you say Robert Guerrero’s obvious weaknesses are, since you apparently handpicked him?

Mayweather

I don’t really know what his weakness are, but he’s flatfooted and he’s more like a grappler. He’s more like a wrestler than a boxer. Like I said before, he’s more like a grappler than a boxer. But I’ve been facing guys forever, and everybody already said what they’re going to do to me and I’ve handpicked opponents. You know they all say, “But he chose the right one this time.” He’s my mandatory so I’m facing my mandatory at WBC. I wanted to defend my WBA title after this fight, but I guess I’m no longer the WBA champ. So I didn’t know I got stripped of my title.

Q

Every fight means a lot to you. What would this one mean to you? Is it just another step in the road?

Mayweather

He’s a solid opponent. I mean I like the guy. The guy is funny to me. When I watch him talk, when I’m watching him talk he’s funny to me. Like I said before, you get a different Robert Guerrero when he’s in front of Floyd Mayweather than the Robert Guerrero that you guys see on All Access.

When he’s in front of me, when we finally had the chance to meet up face-to-face, he had nothing to say. He had no trash talking but once. Once he got to the back of the dressing room, when he was no longer in my face, he had everything to say. Once he’s on All Access and he’s not face-to-face with Floyd Mayweather he got everything to say, but once he’s face-to-face with me he has nothing to say.

Q

What does an opponent have to do to impress you? What do they have to do to kind of impress you or are you very, very hard to impress?

Mayweather

I’m not trying to be impressed by an opponent. I’m going to go out there and do what I do, and that’s just beat the opponent that’s in front of me.

Q

After 17 years in the sport, how can you say that your drive has changed? Or what motivates you compared to when you first started being a boxer and you had yet to achieve the things that you’ve done? What keeps that drive alive now that you’ve achieved so much in boxing?

Mayweather

I guess just the will to win. I’ve still got a lot left. I feel probably if I didn’t’ have anything left then I probably still wouldn’t be in the sport. It’s just the will to win, the will to win. I hadn’t really took punishment in this sport so I still have a lot left because I haven’t took any punishment. If I took a lot of punishment then I probably would’ve hung the gloves up by now.

Q

Well talk about when you first started. When you first started being a boxer, a professional, your first professional match, was the sport everything you thought it would be? Were you a wide-eyed young man-?

Mayweather

No, it’s not everything I thought. It’s a lot of good and-of course it’s like anything. You have a lot of good days in the sport. There are a lot of good things that go on but also there’s a lot of bad things, more bad than good. My goal is just to try to clean up the sport of boxing so the sport can live on.

Q

Well what’s been the key of, I guess, your staying power? When a lot of the guys that were fighting at the same time you were, they’re no longer in the sport. They’ve gone. They’re nowhere to be seen. You, you have just increased your stock almost with each passing year into the stratosphere, so to speak.

Mayweather

It’s just more like basically I think there are a lot of fighters that are content. They’re happy. If it’s 100 levels you’ve got fighters who are happy with just going to level 10, level 20. If I go to 100, I’m not happy with just going to 100. I feel like there’s still more levels to go to. You can never be content. You can never be happy. Continue to try to grow. Continue to try to get better.

Mayweather

You know, I never abuse my body. As far as the alcohol and the drugs, I never abuse my body, whereas you got other fighters they abuse their body with alcohol and some abuse their body with drugs and some let their weight balloon up 30 and 40 pounds. Me, myself, stayed right at my fighting weight.

Actually, I weighed out yesterday in the gym at 147. The day before that I weighed 147 so my weight was made from the beginning of training camp because you have to be-as far as with the boxing, you have to be-this is a year-round sport. This is a year-round sport and I’m dedicated to it. I’m dedicated to it. I’m dedicated to my craft.

Q

You mentioned you grew up in Grand Rapids and you were probably close to an element that has probably taken a lot of people down to your neighborhood, things like drugs and alcohol and things like that. How were you able to keep yourself from that element, stay away from that? How were you able to do that?

Mayweather

Just living and learning from watching. Keeping my eyes open wide. Just watching. Everybody in my neighborhood-as far as hustling, you can make a lot of money but it ends in two ways, either in a jail cell or a coffin. I looked at the bigger picture. I’d rather take my chances with this boxing than taking my chances doing anything that could put me in a predicament that I don’t want to be in. So that’s why I chose boxing.

Q

Last question’s just about, Floyd, you talked about wanting to set records. You set a lot of Pay-Per-View records. That’s all on the record. But in terms of making this fight a blockbuster, is more of that pressure now on you to sell this fight given that Guerrero’s not as well known as Cotto was? He’s not as well-known as Mosley was and he doesn’t’ have all that dynamic of a personality. So is there a lot more pressure on you now to make people want to buy this fight?

Mayweather

He’s a young, tough competitor. He talks a good game so now we’ll just have to see if he can fight the same way he talk. He’s doing a hell of a job with helping promote the fight. He’s doing a hell of a job. Like I said before, every time I think about the guy I smile and I laugh because he’s a funny character. One thing about him, him and his dad, they both got personality. If I can say nothing else about him, they both got personality, him and his father.

Q

You talked a little bit about in the call about the fact that the contract is 30 months. And I’m wondering, when you say that it’s 30 months does that mean that after 30 months you want to retire or do you want to just asses it and maybe find some other deal wherever, whether again with Showtime or somewhere else or are you thinking that 30 months that’s a wrap?

Mayweather

I don’t know yet. I don’t know. By 30 months I’d be knocking a door, but I really don’t know. We just have to see how these next six fights play out.

Q

I know that the length of the agreement is for as many as six fights over 30 months, but is your intention going into this thing to actually fight six times during 30 months because that would be pretty much as busy as you’ve been even going back to maybe when you first won your first world championship?

Mayweather

I’m going to stay active. I think the more active and more busier I think it would be more better for me; it’d be more better for my fans.

Q

Do you think that at your age your body would allow you to have that many fights in succession over that short period of time?

Mayweather

Absolutely. I think so. We’ll just have to see. Only time will tell. We’ll see.

Swanson

Floyd, any final comments and then we’ll let you go?

Mayweather

I want to thank everybody that called in on the conference call and once again thank my team, thank you for the promotions. You guys all go to TheMoneyTeam.com. Buy a hat. Buy a shirt. And I’ll see you guys May Day Weekend. Thanks for all the stories that you guys wrote thus far covering this fight. Kelly, you’ve done a hell of a job. Thank you and I appreciate you.

END OF CALL

“MAY DAY: Mayweather vs. Guerrero,” a 12-round fight for Mayweather’s WBC Welterweight World Championship and the vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship, is promoted by Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly Auto Parts, AT&T, Star Trek Into Darkness and Valvoline. The mega-event will take place Saturday, May 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will be produced and distributed live by SHOWTIME PPV® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The event can be heard in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP). Also featured will be WBC Featherweight World Champion Daniel Ponce de Leon taking on Two-Division World Champion Abner Mares in a 12-round fight for Ponce de Leon’s WBC Featherweight World Championship, former IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz facing veteran Alexander Munoz in a 10-round fight for the vacant USBA Junior Featherweight Championship and rising star J’Leon Love squaring off against recent world title challenger Gabriel Rosado in a 10-round middleweight battle for the vacant NABF Middleweight Championship.

Remaining tickets for “MAY DAY: Mayweather vs. Guerrero” priced at $1,500, $1,250, $800 and $600, not including applicable service charges, are on sale now with a total ticket limit of 10 per person. To charge by phone with a major credit card, call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000. Tickets will also be available for purchase at www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com.

General admission tickets for the “MAY DAY: Mayweather vs. Guerrero” closed circuit telecasts are priced at $50, not including handling fees, and are available for purchase at each individual property’s box office outlets and will also be available for purchase by phone with a major credit card at 866-799-7711. Ticket sales are limited to eight (8) per person. Tickets also are available through Ticketmaster by calling (800) 745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

New York – FOX Sports and Golden Boy Promotions, founded by 10-time World Champion Oscar De La Hoya, have reached a multi-media rights extension to televise exciting live boxing in the United States and internationally. The new multi-year agreement keeps Golden Boy Promotions’ bouts with FOX Sports for years to come, and helps establish a new Monday night boxing franchise on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), FOX Sports’ new, national multi-sport cable channel launching on Aug. 17. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“When we started Golden Boy, we made a promise to only do business with the best companies out there,” said De La Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. “To be partnered with FOX on this sensational series is a great fit. We look forward to working with FOX Sports 1 for years to come in giving fans the best boxing matches available.”

“Led by the dynamic Oscar De La Hoya and its Chief Executive Officer Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy Promotions has developed a great reputation over the last several years for putting together exciting cards with top-flight fighters,” said Patrick Crakes, Senior Vice President, Programming & Research, FOX Sports. “It’s great that we’ve been able to build upon and expand what has already been a fruitful relationship that benefits multiple networks in the FOX Sports family, domestically and internationally.”

Under the new agreement FOX Sports retains exclusive domestic rights to 48 live two-hour events (featuring two or three fights per event) annually with many of Golden Boy Promotions’ brightest stars expected to be featured. FS1 is scheduling 24 live events per year, with FOX Deportes, the nation’s leading Spanish-language sports network, airing all 48 events live, an increase from 36 in the previous deal. The 24 events on FS1 will all originate in the U.S., and most are expected to run on Monday nights once the network launches. FOX Deportes will simulcast the same 24 events as FS1 in Spanish, plus air 24 others that originate from Mexico. Once events air on FS1, each will be available for encore presentations on FOX Sports regional networks. Fox International Channels also holds exclusive rights to all 48 live fights in the Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe (excluding the U.K.) and Middle East territories. Finally, all events will be available via authenticated streaming through FOX Sports Go.

“We are thrilled to partner with FOX as the boxing provider for FOX Sports 1 and FOX Deportes,” added Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer. “For years, the best of boxing has been available primarily on premium cable and pay-per-view only, but our partnership with FOX Sports signifies a major step-up in exposure for the fighter, Golden Boy Promotions and the entire sport. We are confident that with our mix of world class fights and fighters combined with the reach and promotional capacities that FOX Sports provides, the sky is really the limit for us all.”

In addition to Golden Boy’s live events, all FOX Sports channels have access to 24 classic archived events from the promoter’s extensive library. Archive fights feature many of boxing biggest names, including De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Bernard Hopkins, Canelo Alvarez, Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Juan Manuel Marquez and Shane Mosley.

-FSMG-

About Golden Boy Promotions

Los Angeles-based Golden Boy Promotions was established in 2002 by Oscar de la Hoya, the first Hispanic to own a national boxing promotional company. In 2007, in its fifth year of promoting, Golden Boy Promotions set a record by selling over 2.5 million in pay-per-view homes in a single night. Also in 2007, Golden Boy Promotions established the record for highest grossing pay-per-view homes in a single year with more than 4 million total. Golden Boy Promotions is one of boxing’s most active and respected promoters, presenting shows in packed venues around the United States on networks such as HBO, SHOWTIME, TeleFutura, FOX Sports Networks and FOX Deportes.

Golden Boy Promotions currently has over 50 fighters under contract, from future Hall of Famers Bernard Hopkins and Erik Morales to current world champions and superstars Devon Alexander, Canelo Alvarez, Adrien Broner, Danny Garcia, Robert Guerrero, Chris John, Amir Khan, Marcos Maidana, Abner Mares, Paulie Malignaggi, Lucas Matthysse, Victor Ortiz, Lamont Peterson, Daniel Ponce De Leon, Peter Quillin, Leo Santa Cruz and Humberto Soto. Also included on the company’s roster are top contenders Alfredo Angulo, Sharif Bogere, Pablo Cesar Cano, Danny Jacobs, Erislandy Lara, Jorge Linares, Seth Mitchell and Keith Thurman as well as highly regarded prospects Randy Caballero, Jermell Charlo, Omar Figueroa, Eddie Gomez, Frankie Gomez, Anthony Ogogo, Antonio Orozco, Gary Russell Jr. and Deontay Wilder.

About FOX Sports

FOX Sports Media Group (FSMG) is the umbrella entity representing News Corporation’s wide array of multi-platform US-based sports assets. Built with brands capable of reaching more than 100 million viewers in a single weekend, FSMG includes ownership and interests in linear television networks, digital and mobile programming, broadband platforms, multiple web sites, joint-venture businesses and several licensing partnerships. FSMG includes FOX Sports, the sports television arm of the FOX Broadcasting Company; FOX Sports 1; Fox’s 22 regional sports networks, their affiliated regional web sites and FSN national programming; FOX Soccer, FOX Soccer Plus and FOX Soccer 2Go; FUEL TV; FOX Deportes and FOX College Sports. In addition, FSMG also encompasses FOX Sports Digital, which includes FOXSports.com on MSN, FOX Sports GO, Whatifsports.com, FOXSportsNext.com and Yardbarker.com. Also included in the Group are Fox’s interests in joint-venture businesses Big Ten Network, BTN 2Go and STATS, LLC, as well as licensing agreements that establish the FOX Sports Radio Network and FOX Sports Skybox restaurants.

LOS ANGELES, March 22 – It’s a back-to-back weekend of boxing classics on March 23 and 30 when some of the sport’s greats including Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather, Bernard Hopkins, Abner Mares, Ricky Hatton and Victor Ortiz are featured on FOX Deportes Classics.

On Saturday, March 23, it’s a hard-hitting classic doubleheader, when the battle between Two-Division World Champion Abner Mares and former World Champion Vic Darchinyan from 2010 airs at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT, then the memorable 2004 showdown between future Hall of Famers Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins follows at 11:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. PT.

Then, on Saturday, March 30, two more action-packed fights will be featured starting with former World Champion Victor Ortiz’s 2010 battle against Hector Alatorre at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT followed by the memorable 2007 mega fight between then both undefeated fighters Floyd Mayweather and Ricky Hatton at 11:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. PT.

2004 Mexican Olympian Abner Mares scored the biggest victory of his career on December 11, 2010 when he rose from the canvas to knock down Vic Darchinyan and go on to win a hard fought split decision victory that kicked off his run to two divisional world championships.

It was one of boxing’s biggest fights in years when Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins met for the Undisputed Middleweight World Championship on September 18, 2004, and after an evenly-matched battle, Hopkins scored a ninth round knockout victory over “The Golden Boy.”

Currently competing on ABC’s hit reality show “Dancing With The Stars,” former World Champion “Vicious” Victor Ortiz wasn’t dancing against Hector Alatorre in their February 25, 2010 bout at Club Nokia at L.A. LIVE where he dropped and then stopped the rugged veteran in the 10th round, kicking off his run towards a world title.

Following up his mega-fight win over Oscar De La Hoya in May of 2007, current Eight Time and Five-Division World Champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather finished off that year on December 8 by stopping British superstar Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton in the 10th round to retain his WBC Welterweight World Championship and improve to 38-0 as a pro.

For more information on Golden Boy Promotions, visit www.goldenboypromotions.comand www.FOXDeportes.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing and www.twitter.com/FOXDeportes and visit us on Facebook at Golden Boy Facebook Page and www.facebook.com/FOXDeportes.

LOS ANGELES, December 21 – This holiday season, get ready for a gift all boxing fans will love, as Golden Boy Promotions teams up with FOX Deportes to re-air classic fights for four days and nights of epic fights featuring current and future Hall of Famers, world champions and rising stars engaging in some of the most pivotal bouts of their careers.

Included in these marathons are “The Golden Boy” Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd “Money” Mayweather, Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao, Julio “JC” Cesar Chavez, Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker, Erik “El Terrible” Morales, Marco Antonio “Baby Faced Assasin” Barrera, Miguel Cotto, Sugar Shane Mosley, Canelo Alvarez, Abner Mares, Ricky “Hitman” Hatton and Danny “Swift” Garcia, just to name a few.

The action begins this Saturday, December 22 at 3:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. PT with the following lineup:

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Pernell Whitaker – 3:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. PT

Manny Pacquiao vs. Marco Antonio Barrera I – 4:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Shane Mosley I – 5:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT

Erik Morales vs. Pablo Cesar Cano – 6:00 p.m. ET/3:00 p.m. PT

Israel Vazquez vs. Rafael Marquez III – 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT

Miguel Cotto vs. Shane Mosley – 8:00 p.m.ET/5:00 p.m. PT

Floyd Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz – 9:00 p.m.ET/6:00 p.m. PT

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad – 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT

The next day of classics begins on Tuesday, December 25 at 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT with 10 more bouts:

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Ike Quartey – 1:00 p.m. ET/10:00 a.m. PT

Shane Mosley vs. Ricardo Mayorga – 2:00 p.m. ET/11:00 a.m. PT

Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Oscar De La Hoya – 3:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. PT

Floyd Mayweather vs. Ricky Hatton – 4:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Fernando Vargas – 5:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT

Israel Vazquez vs. Rafael Marquez II – 6:00 p.m. ET/3:00 p.m. PT

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad – 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT

Amir Khan vs. Marcos Maidana – 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT

Canelo Alvarez vs. Ryan Rhodes – 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT

Canelo Alvarez vs. Mathew Hatton – 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT

On December 29, it’s a Saturday night doubleheader featuring:

Abner Mares vs. Vic Darchinyan – 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT

Danny Garcia vs. Nate Campbell – 11:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. PT

Finally, on Saturday, January 5, it’s another marathon of elite level boxing action with the following bouts:

Rigoberto Alvarez vs. Austin Trout – 6:00 p.m. ET/3:00 p.m. PT

Lamont Peterson vs. Victor Ortiz – 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT

Amir Khan vs. Paulie Malignaggi – 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT

Floyd Mayweather vs. Shane Mosley -9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT

Oscar De La Hoya vs. Felix Trinidad – 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT

For more information on Golden Boy Promotions, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxingor visit us on Facebook at Golden Boy Facebook Page. For more information on FOX Deportes visit www.FOXDeportes.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/FOXDeportes or visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FOXDeportes.

LOS ANGELES (Dec. 12, 2012) – Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya, former Unified Super Lightweight Champion Amir “King” Khan, his opponent, unbeaten Carlos Molina and the four other pugilists fighting this Saturday, December 15, live on SHOWTIME® (10:30 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast) at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena participated in a media workout Tuesday at the jam-packed Ponce De Leon Boxing Gym in Montebello, Calif.

Khan meets Molina in the main event in a 12-round bout for the vacant WBC Silver Super Lightweight Championship. In co-featured 10-rounders on SHOWTIME, knockout artist and 2008 Olympic Bronze Medalist Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (25-0, 25 KO’s), of Tuscaloosa, Ala., takes on Kelvin Price (13-0, 6 KO’s), of Pensacola, Fla., in a collision of 6-foot-7 unbeatens for the vacant WBC Continental Americas Heavyweight Championship and Alfredo “Perro” Angulo (21-2, 18 KO’s), of Los Angeles, battles Jorge Silva (18-2-2, 14 KO’s), of Chula Vista, Calif., in a junior middleweight match.

The evening event will also be televised live on Sky Sports 1HD in the United Kingdom at 2:00 a.m. GMT on Sunday, December 16.

The tripleheader on SHOWTIME concludes an unprecedented day-night boxing marathon that begins with fights on CBS Television Network in the afternoon and is followed later by one fight on SHOWTIME EXTREME.

Undefeated IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz (22-0-1, 13 KO’s), of Los Angeles, will defend his title against Alberto Guevara (16-0, 6 KO’s) of San Diego, Calif., in the main event on CBS while talented 2012 U.S. Olympian Joseph “Jo-Jo” Diaz, of South El Monte, Calif., will make his pro debut against Vicente Alfaro (5-2, 1 KO), of Northfield, Minn., in the opening bout.

The live 90-minute broadcast on CBS, its first since Bernard Hopkins knocked out Glen Johnson in the 11th round on Jan. 20, 1997, will begin at 4:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. PT.

Admission is free to the afternoon event that begins at 1:00 p.m. PT and will include three of Diaz’s U.S. Olympic teammates who were all victorious in their professional debuts on Nov. 9 on SHOWTIME’S ShoBox: The New Generation: Errol Spence Jr. of Brentwood, N.Y., Marcus Browne of Staten Island, N.Y. and Dominic Breazeale of Alhambra, Calif., all in four-round bouts. Junior middleweight Spence will face Richard Andrews (5-2-3, 2 KO’s), of Charlottesville, Va., light heavyweight Browne is matched against Ritchie Cherry (3-5, 1 KO), of Oklahoma City, Okla., and heavyweight Breazeale faces Michael Dennis (0-1), of Glendale, Calif.

Welterweight Shawn “Showtime” Porter (20-0, 14 KO’s), of Cleveland, Ohio, will put his unbeaten record on the line against surging former World Champion Julio Diaz (40-7, 29 KO’s), of Indio, Calif., in a 10-round bout on SHOWTIME EXTREME (9:00 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast).

Tickets for the evening boxing session (SHOWTIME-televised fight card) are priced at $150, $100, $75, $50 and $25, plus applicable taxes and service charges, and are on sale at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena box office, all Ticketmaster outlets, by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

Non-televised fights on the undercard (first fight is 4:00 p.m. PT): Frankie Gomez (13-0, 10 KO’s), East Los Angeles, vs. Pavel Miranda (19-8-1, 10 KO’s), Tijuana, Mex., 8 rounds, welterweights; Hugo Centeno (16-0, 8 KO’s), Oxnard, Calif., vs. Allen Conyers (12-7, 9 KO’s), Bronx, N.Y., 8 rounds, junior middleweights; Chris Pearson (6-0, 5 KO’s), Trotwood, Ohio, vs. Dashon Johnson (13-9-3, 4 KO’s), Escondido, Calif., 6 rounds, middleweights; and Jerren Cochran (6-0, 3 KO’s), Houston, Texas, vs. TBA, 4 rounds, featherweights.

Tickets for the afternoon boxing session (CBS broadcast) will be free of charge as part of the Golden Boy Promotions Holiday Fanfest and can be acquired at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena box office.

Fans who present ticket stubs from the CBS event when purchasing tickets for the SHOWTIME event will receive a 20 percent discount. There is a limit of one discounted purchased ticket per ticket redeemed while supplies last.

Saturday’s mega-event will also feature Golden Boy’s Holiday Fanfest on the grounds of the Sports Arena that will include music, autograph sessions with boxing’s biggest stars, games, boxing memorabilia, a visit by Santa Claus at an Oscar De La Hoya Foundation-sponsored toy give-away (10:00 a.m.), and much more.

Khan vs. Molina is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and Khan Promotions and sponsored by Corona and AT&T. Santa Cruz vs. Guevara is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona and AT&T.

Below please find quotes from Tuesday’s workout:

OSCAR DE LA HOYA

“Saturday is a special day for all of us – the fighters, fans, everybody. Because of the toy drive, there will be lots of gifts to give away, lots of gifts for us to disperse to the kids. That makes it a win-win for everybody.

“The turnout today is wonderful. The fights on Saturday will be exceptional. We’re very proud to be teaming up with CBS and SHOWTIME for what will be a memorable day and night of exciting fights.

“The main event on SHOWTIME has attracted international attention and is very intriguing. The big questions are: who is Carlos Molina and what is he bringing to the table? And what does Amir Khan have left? A strong contingent of press are here from England, which is always the case whenever and wherever Amir fights. There is a huge amount of interest in his return to the ring. As a fan, I can’t wait for Saturday.”

AMIR KHAN

“Obviously, this fight means a lot to me and is very important. I can’t afford to get beat. Yes, I want to fight the biggest names, but to do that, I first have to win on Saturday. I think it’s equally important for me that I win and that I win impressively.

“I never treat a fight as a tune-up or go in underestimating my opponent because all opponents are dangerous. I am certainly not taking Molina lightly. I’ve seen a little of him. I expect a good fight and for him to come at me. I appreciate the fact he took this fight.

“My sparring has been brilliant. The switch in trainers has been a positive change. I feel great and I’m in a great state of mind. You’re going to see a smarter, much more mature fighter, a mistake-free, precise puncher who’ll make every punch count and won’t make any mistakes.”

CARLOS MOLINA

“I grew up in tough neighborhoods with tough neighbors, so one thing I won’t be is intimidated by him, or by his reputation. I’ll be ready for anything.

“We got the call for this fight in September and I’ve been running and training hard ever since. My trainers have really pushed me. I’m in tip-top shape and feel stronger at 147 pounds than I ever have. I believe we have a great game plan.

“I’ve seen all his fights and know what he brings into the ring. There have been a lot of great fights this year and a lot of upsets. This is going to be a great fight, too, and I’m confident I can win it.’’

DEONTAY WILDER

“I’ve won all my fights by knockout, but I never go into a fight thinking I’ll win that way. I still have too much to prove to think that way.

“I’m thrilled and very happy to be part of a great fight card like this. I like pressure, so that is never a factor, but I know this is going to be a good fight. Both of us are hungry and are coming to win.

“People criticize me all the time. They look at my record, see all the knockouts and say I haven’t fought anybody, but we set out with a game plan when I turned pro and we continue to follow that game plan.

“The next step is Saturday night. I’m not saying it will be my toughest fight, but it could be my hardest. Both of us dream of becoming heavyweight world champion one day. Both of us want to impress on SHOWTIME. I’ve had a great camp with really great sparring. To the fans, all I’ll say is…buckle up.”

KELVIN PRICE

“It’s great to be back on SHOWTIME and to get this kind of opportunity. Finally, after years of missing out on big fights for one reason or another, I get the chance for my coming out party. I am beyond excited.

“Despite a late start in boxing after switching over after playing pro basketball for years in Europe, I should have many more fights than I do. But the fact is I’ve been turned down by almost all the young heavyweights, including Tyson Fury, David Price and Chris Arreola. They may agree to fight, but once they do their research on me the fight is scrapped.

“I consider myself the best unknown fighter in the world, but now I’m finally getting my chance. I’m like a diamond in the rough, still learning every day, but this is the kind of fight I’ve been waiting for. I’m ready to show my stuff. I’m hungry like you wouldn’t believe.’’

ALFREDO ANGULO

“I’m really excited to be coming back so quickly and fighting again in Los Angeles. Like I always do for any opponent, I’ve trained very hard and am ready to go 10 rounds. You never know what’s going to happen once the bell rings. I’ll take early knockouts all the time, but you can never count on them.

“Silva is a really good fighter, and he’s Mexican. So we have a Mexico versus Mexico fight, which is always a war.

“You may not be familiar with Silva or know his name, but those are the fighters who are the most dangerous. They’re very eager to change that and make a name for themselves.

“No one’s paid a lot of attention to Silva, but I have. I know that hunger he has, his ambition to be somebody and make himself a name. This is going to be a hard fight. No way I’m taking him lightly.’’

JORGE SILVA

“This is my second fight in the United States and first on SHOWTIME, so I have a lot to prove, but I’ve waited a long time for this kind of opportunity and I’m ready to take advantage of it.

“I’m really excited and motivated to finally be fighting a quality opponent, and I most definitely feel I will win and get the recognition that goes with it. I look at this as not only the biggest fight of my career, but the most difficult. I think I a lot of the guys Angulo has knocked out were intimidated by him before they even got in the ring. I’m not intimidated by anything or anybody.

“I’m in great shape and confident of a victory. I look forward to showing SHOWTIME and all the fans exactly who I am.’’

###

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, follow us on Twitter at, www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/AmirKingKhan, www.twitter.com/CarlosMolina562, www.twitter.com/ElPerro82, www.twitter.com/BronzeBomber, www.twitter.com/teampriceboxing, www.ShowtimeSHAWNP, www.JosephDiazJr, www.twitter.com/ErrolSpenceJr, www.twitter.com/Marcus_Browne, www.twitter.com/SHOsports, follow the conversation using #KhanMolina or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing or www.facebook.com/SHOsports.

Television, a medium silly as it is ubiquitous, tells very few truths and perhaps none disinterestedly. In keeping with its current place in sports, boxing, as a gathering of only free agents, is, on television, a less-disinterested place than most. Praise any bubble of truth, then, that somehow rises through television’s thick, shifting filters and brings a spectacle honest as Oscar De La Hoya’s face. Whatever he is as a promoter, De La Hoya very apparently loves to see men punch one another, and his face, 25 feet back from the ring, visible between the ropes, center of the screen for most Golden Boy Promotions telecasts, is, anymore, the most honest television commentator boxing has.

De La Hoya’s face on Saturday, while Robert Guerrero was beating Andre Berto 116-110 and 116-110 and 116-110 in Ontario, Calif., in an interim title match on HBO, was often a picture of euphoria. De La Hoya’s face spoke to a couple happenings: His fighter, Guerrero, was not genuinely imperiled for a moment of the match (doubters should find contrasting footage of De La Hoya’s face during Johnathon Banks’ Nov. 17 dismantling of Seth Mitchell), and the fight itself was a spectacle of punching performed by two men who knew how – which anyone reading this ought love as much as De La Hoya helplessly does.

The most important discovery Saturday brought was that Andre Berto, a career welterweight, was unable to hurt Robert Guerrero, who, recently as last year a lightweight and recently as 2009 a super featherweight, took Berto’s flush right uppercuts, thrown with what appeared to be perfect leverage and ferocious intent, much better than he took Selcuk Aydin’s same punches in July. Is Guerrero that much tougher than he looked just four months ago, or is Berto, after a suspension for PED use, not the force, or not capable of summoning the force, he was or once did?

If Saturday’s excellent fight lacked suspense at times, and it did no matter the assiduous sales pitch tossed HBO viewers’ ways, it was because Guerrero never once appeared out of control or discomfited by Berto. Guerrero’s lead eye closed, as did both of Berto’s, but that wasn’t the ordeal it might have been if either guy had space enough to throw a full combination from proper range in the fight’s final nine minutes. One detected genuine panic in Guerrero’s bearing during his July match with Aydin, whom Guerrero held for desperation more than strategy, but that panicked bearing never materialized against Berto, regardless of how many Berto uppercuts put the top of Guerrero’s head nearly between his shoulder blades.

Saturday Guerrero settled accounts with aficionados who long ago tired of his promoter and publicists. Guerrero won a fight much more than a boxing match. And for that referee Lou Moret deserves a spot of praise. That he had limited control of the fighters from the opening bell to well past the match’s closing is much the reason Saturday’s fight was much better than anticipated; Moret appeared to be from a very old school, with a founding text that instructs if a man wishes to make a million dollars fighting another man, he should not be protected from that other man if it can be helped.

An officious referee would have broken the fighters each time they locked arms, likely precluding one, if not both, Berto’s slumps to the blue canvas, and issuing another round of invitations to future athletes-cum-prizefighters to believe, as Berto does, every event of pugilism is a showcase of his athleticism in which a superior athlete’s personal injury can be attributed only to governance gone missing. After beginning the match in a crisis of identity crisis – “My Mayweather is better than Broner’s!” – Berto occasionally bodied Guerrero in rounds 3 and 4 to create separation enough to pull his right fist back towards his own chest and strike Guerrero behind the ear several times along the way, a trick that brought few complaints from Guerrero and not much of a warning from Moret. But Guerrero adjusted to it, kept his chin pressed to Berto’s collarbone while marching him backwards, and in round 5 those punches behind Guerrero’s left ear became punches to the center of Guerrero’s brainstem, a patently illegal place to put them – as Berto, Guerrero, Moret, and everyone else knew.

This gave Berto his desired opening: the referee was against him! – an inanity championed by Berto’s cheering squad on the HBO broadcast team and voiced by Berto in a postfight interview Guerrero gracelessly but gratefully interrupted to remind viewers they’d just seen neither the fight of the century nor a very even match but actually one unanimously scored 116-110 in which Robert Guerrero beat Andre Berto’s ass.

If you came to Saturday’s fight without a rooting interest, because neither guy is fractionally compelling as the heroic images force-fed to boxing fans about both – hurricane relief worker, cancer survivor spouse, victim of chemistry – you left the fight thinking much more highly of Guerrero than Berto, since Guerrero, from the very first minute, wanted to fight a hell of a lot more than Berto did, which, as Lou Moret’s inaction reminded us, is what the men signed up for, an obligation no less meaningful for the numerous instances lesser entertainers find ways round it.

Maybe it marks a change. When one considers the way Miguel Cotto was allowed to pin Floyd Mayweather to the ropes in May, the way Andre Ward was able to brutalize Chad Dawson in and out of clinches in September, the way Abner Mares obstinately purpled Anselmo Moreno’s beltline three weeks ago, and the way Guerrero was able to hold and hit Berto Saturday, one detects a possible pattern wherein the aggressor of a match is given more leeway than its superior athlete appreciates. If this is the pendulum reversing course and beginning its descent, let it swing, friends, let it swing.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

Atlantic City, NJ (Nov. 12) – Golden Boy Promotions will not only bring a night of entertainment relief to Atlantic City when they present the Adrien “The Problem” Broner vs. Antonio DeMarco WBC Lightweight World Championship at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, they will also bring monetary relief to those effected by Hurricane Sandy by making a donation to the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City whose main and satellite buildings suffered extensive damage in the storm. Caesars Atlantic City and Golden Boy President Oscar De La Hoya will match those funds in a collective effort to reach a vital part of the community.

Golden Boy will donate two dollars for every ticket sold and $1,000 per knockout registered during the event with De La Hoya and Caesars Atlantic City matching and adding to the much-needed donation. Several of the area Boys and Girls Clubs were heavily damaged during the storm, forcing the closure of the facilities that directly impact underserved youth and their family members in the area.

In addition to the monetary pledges, Golden Boy Promotions will donate tickets to the Boys and Girls Club of Atlantic City and fighters Adrien Broner and Seth Mitchell will visit one of the clubs on Wednesday during fight week.

“We are hoping that the Broner vs. DeMarco fight will afford people the opportunity to forget their worries for an evening and enjoy this great night of boxing,” said Richard Schaefer, Chief Executive Officer of Golden Boy Promotions. “At the same time we understand the severity of the situation and would be remiss not to make a donation to help those directly effected by this terrible storm. With Oscar and Caesars Atlantic City providing matching donations, we feel very positive that our collective donation will help to make a difference.”

“The people of Atlantic City are in need now and I am happy to join in the effort and make my own contribution order to help some of the people affected by Hurricane Sandy,” said Oscar De La Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. “A world of good can happen when everyone comes together to give back to people who are in need.”

“Sandy not only breached the walls of the Boys & Girls Club, but the lives of each and every member here in Atlantic City,” said John Smith, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Harrah’s Resort. “So it’s with great honor that I announce this donation to an organization that embodies the never-give-up attitude of New Jersey. We will not sit idly by and allow anything to compromise these impressionable youths.”

ABOUT “BRONER VS. DEMARCO”:

Broner vs. DeMarco, a 12-round fight between Adrien “The Problem” Broner and Antonio DeMarco for DeMarco’s WBC Lightweight World Championship will take place Saturday, November 17 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The event is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions and R & R Promotions in association with Gary Shaw Productions, sponsored by Corona, AT&T and Caesars Atlantic City and will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. The co-main event will be a 12-round heavyweight clash between Seth Mitchell and Johnathon Banks for Mitchell’s NABO title and the vacant WBC International Heavyweight title.

Tickets priced at $200, $100, $50 and $25, plus applicable taxes and service charges, are available for purchase at the Boardwalk Hall box office, by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 736-1420 or online at www.ticketmaster.com.

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/GaryShawBoxing, www.twitter.com/AdrienBroner,www.twitter.com/De_Marco07, www.twitter.com/SethMayhem48, www.twitter.com/BoardwalkHall, www.twitter.com/HBOboxing, follow the conversation using #BronerDemarco or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing or www.facebook.com/HBOboxing.

ABOUT CAESARS ENTERTAINMENT

Caesars Entertainment Corporation is the world’s largest provider of branded casino entertainment. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, more than 73 years ago, Caesars has grown through development of new properties, expansions and acquisitions, and now operates casinos on four continents. The company’s properties operate primarily under the Harrah’s®, Caesars® and Horseshoe® brand names. Caesars also owns the World Series of Poker® and the London Clubs International family of casinos. Caesars Entertainment is focused on building loyalty and value with its customers through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence and technology leadership. For more information, please visit www.caesars.com.

INDIO, CALIF. (Nov. 9, 2012) – The transition from amateur to professional in sports is a rite of passage for nearly all athletes who earn pay for play. For many Olympic athletes, however, there is added pressure due to real or perceived expectations of them as professionals. Such is the case with Olympic boxers the world over who don’t have the luxury of turning professional in low-profile fights.

Those high expectations come with good reason as from the 1976 Olympics through the 2004 Games, 41 percent of U.S. Olympic boxers went on to win at least one world title as a professional.

On the eve of “Night of Olympians” tonight/Friday, Nov. 9, on ShoBox: The New Generation live on SHOWTIME® (10 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast) from Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, Calif.), six past U.S. Olympians, all of whom would become world champions, looked back at their pro debuts and their mindsets going into those fights.

Here’s what Oscar De La Hoya, Howard Davis, Raul Marquez, Russell, Jr., Antonio Tarver and Andre Ward had to say:

OSCAR DE LA HOYA, Gold Medalist, 1992

(Pro debut: De La Hoya registered three knockdowns en route to a 42 second, first-round knockout win over Lamar Williams at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, Calif. on Nov. 23, 1992.)

“Because I was a fighter who was brought up fighting as a professional-type style I was actually really looking forward to my pro debut. I’d been sparring and training with pros like Joey Olivo and Paul Gonzales since I was 13, so I wasn’t nervous at all. Actually, I couldn’t wait. Just the fact I would be wearing eight-ounce gloves without headgear for the first time excited me.

“Once I got that first fight out of the way, I knew I was on my way.”

HOWARD DAVIS, Gold Medalist, 1976

(Pro debut: Davis outpointed Jose Resto over six rounds at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas on Jan. 15, 1977.)

“The fight was nationally televised. I was disappointed because I wanted to fight in front of my hometown fans at the Nassau Coliseum. Ray Leonard got to turn pro in front of his hometown fans. Instead, the fight was in Vegas, and only a couple of hundred, maybe 500 fans showed up.

“I was very nervous and the nerves didn’t go away until my second pro fight, but I beat him silly every round and didn’t let him hit me. He had no neck, and every time I hit him, I felt like I was breaking my hand.”

RAUL MARQUEZ, 1992

(Pro debut: Marquez stopped Rafael Rezzaq in the fourth round at the HemisFair Arena in San Antonio, Texas on Oct. 3, 1992.)

“It was a big night for me. There was pressure because I was supposed to be one of the U.S. Olympians who would go on to win a world title. I was nervous, but I was nervous before every fight. There were a lot of friends and family from Houston and Mexico there.

“I fought a tough guy. I kept knocking him down and he kept getting up. I don’t even remember how many knockdowns I scored. I’ll tell you this, he was much tougher than I had expected for an Olympian making his pro debut.

“One thing I definitely remember: Lou Duva threw me a party afterward at Mi Tierra, a famous restaurant in San Antonio. There was a mariachi band and everything.”

GARY RUSSELL JR., 2008

(Pro debut: Russell scored a third-round TKO over Antonio Reyes at the Million Dollar Elm Casino in Tulsa, Okla., on Jan. 16, 2009)

“My pro debut was in Oklahoma on ShoBox and I remember being excited and a little bit anxious. I had the opportunity to start all over again. I felt like I was having my first amateur fight and it was exciting to do something for the first time.

“My opponent was wearing a suit at the press conference and I remember thinking that wasn’t going to help him in the ring at all. I had full confidence in my ability to beat him.”

ANDRE WARD, Gold Medalist, 2004

(Pro debut: Ward knocked out Chris Molina in the second round on Dec. 18, 2004 at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.)

“I was more anxious than nervous. It was STAPLES Center, on the undercard of Antonio Tarver-Glen Johnson. My fight was televised on premium cable. There were huge expectations and I had a lot to prove even though I had won the gold medal. I also had to prove to myself I could take a shot as a pro.

“I had an absolute wild man on the other side of the ring. Molina wanted to prove I born with a silver spoon in my mouth. He was throwing bombs, head-butting and yelling at me during the fight. I just had to stay in the moment. I hit him some good shots and he quit.”

(Note: Molina, who was 2-0 going in, never fought again.)

ANTONIO TARVER, 1996

(Pro debut: Tarver scored a second-round knockout over Joaquin Garcia at the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia on Feb. 8, 1997.)

“I didn’t know what to expect. You take off the headgear, you put on the little gloves. There were a lot of butterflies. It was like starting over. All jitters and I was fighting on national TV on ‘Tuesday Night Fights,’ and at the Blue Horizon, which had a tough, educated crowd. I just wanted to be perfect.

“I was 28 and a lot of people thought I was too old to be turning pro. I fought an undefeated guy who had a good chin. I was so anxious; I don’t know if I did everything I wanted to do, but I still got the award for Knockout of the Night.”

# # #

In tonight’s ShoBox main event, talented unbeaten featherweight contender and 2008 United States Olympian Gary Russell Jr. (20-0, 12 KOs) of Capitol Heights, Md., will face Roberto Castaneda (20-2-1, 15 KOs) in a 10-round bout.

The five 2012 U.S. Olympians – heavyweight Dominic Breazeale, of Anaheim, Calif., cruiserweight Marcus Browne, of Staten Island, N.Y., super middleweight Terrell Gausha, of Cleveland, Ohio, junior middleweight Errol Spence, of Desotol, Texas, and bantamweight Rau’Shee Warren, of Cincinnati, Ohio – will box in four-round pro debut fights.

Breazeale takes on Curtis Tate (4-3, 4 KO’s), of Oakland, Tenn., Browne will meet Codale Ford (2-0), of Fort Gibson, Okla., Gausha will face Dustin Caplinger (2-3, 1 KO) of Chillicothe, Ohio, Spence will be opposed by Jonathan Garcia (3-3, 1 KO), of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and Warren collides with Luis Rivera of Ponce, Puerto Rico (1-2).

The event is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona. Doors open at 5:00 p.m. PT with the first live fight at 5:30 p.m.

Tickets priced at $25, $35 and $45 are available at the Fantasy Springs Box Office, by calling (800) 827-2946 or online at www.fantasyspringsresort.com.

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For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, www.fantasyspringsresort.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/mrgaryrusselljr, www.twitter.com/BreazealeBoxing, www.twitter.com/MarcusBrowne, www.twitter.com/TerrellGausha, www.twitter.com/ErrolSpenceJr, www.twitter.com/RauSheeWarren,www.twitter.com/fantasysprings or visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing or www.facebook.com/fantasyspringsresort.

For information on SHOWTIME, visit http://Sports.SHO.com, www.twitter.com/SHOsports or www.facebook.com/ShoBoxing.

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 31, 2012) – Former Unified Super Lightweight World Champion and British superstar Amir “King” Khan, unbeaten super lightweight contender Carlos Molina, President of Golden Boy Promotions Oscar De La Hoya, Khan Promotions’ Asif Vali, Khan trainer Virgil Hunter, Molina trainer Clemente Medina and Executive Vice President and General Manager of SHOWTIME Sports Stephen Espinoza participated in a press conference Tuesday to formally announce Khan’s and Molina’s Saturday, Dec. 15 fight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena which will be broadcast live on SHOWTIME® (10:30 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast).

Khan (26-3, 18 KO’s), of Bolton England, a Silver Medalist at the 2004 Olympic Games who’ll be making his SHOWTIME debut and first start under new trainer Virgil Hunter, and Molina (17-0-1, 7 KO’s), a former National Amateur Champion from Norwalk, Calif., will meet in a 12-round 140 lb. bout in a main event on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING. The event will also be televised live by Sky Sports 1HD in the United Kingdom at 1:00 a.m. GMT on Sunday, December 16. The SHOWTIME telecast will be preceded by live preliminary fights on SHOWTIME EXTREME (8:00 p.m. ET/PT).

Khan, 25, has defeated past or current world champions Marco Maidana, Paulie Malignaggi, Zab Judah and Marco Antonio Barrera. Molina, 26, is taking a big step up in class after defeating the likes of Manuel Leyva, Glenn Gonzales and Marcos Jimenez.

Festivities on Dec. 15 will feature a holiday fanfest complete with musical acts, memorabilia and gift giveaways, autograph signings, and meet and greets with some of boxing’s biggest stars.

Tickets priced at $150, $100, $75, $50 and $25, plus applicable taxes and service charges, are on sale at the Los Angeles Sports Arena box office, all Ticketmaster outlets or by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000, or online at ticketmaster.com. Tickets for fans traveling from the United Kingdom are available for purchase online at www.sportscorporation.com or by calling +44 (0)845 163 0845.

What the fighters, trainers and executives said at the Sports Arena on Tuesday:

AMIR KHAN

“I’d like to thank the promoters for putting this fight together and Team Molina for taking the fight. I’m looking forward to fighting on SHOWTIME in the United States.

“I made some mistakes in my last fight, so I changed trainers and training camps. I am now in the Bay Area and I love it. There are no distractions. Sparring has been brilliant.

“I came to the States early so I could work on my technique. Virgil’s got me thinking more, but in a way that won’t get in the way when I fight. I know I have to keep thinking once the fight starts.

“I think Molina has a similar style to mine. He’s a pressure fighter and exciting to watch. We both want to win. I know he doesn’t want to lose his unbeaten record, and I want to show I’m back.

“This fight is in Molina’s backyard but I expect a lot of fans from England to be there. I believe I will win and get back to where I want to be.”

CARLOS MOLINA

“I’m prepared for an all-out war. I want to thank Amir Khan for this great opportunity, but I have to say I think he’s made a big mistake. I’ve got a great team behind me including my trainer Clemente Medina and I’m fighting in my hometown. I can’t ask for anything more than that.

“Come December 15th, the only outcome I see is me remaining undefeated. We’re going to be ready for anything he brings to the table.

“Khan’s a good fighter, a fast fighter. He’s got a great jab and good footwork, but on fight night I’m going to be the dictator and he’s going to fight the way I want to fight. We’re going to shine.

“I think I have the power to knock him out. I don’t think I’ll do it in one punch. I don’t think I have one-punch power but if I hit a guy with three or four shots he will feel it.”

(On his ring-walk on Dec. 15)

“Just like Mike Tyson — focused and straight ahead. Nothing flashy.”

VIRGIL HUNTER (Khan’s Trainer)

“We’re going on our fourth week together and I couldn’t ask for anything better, or for a better situation to be in. Amir is easy to work with and easy to train. He has an open mind and is easy to communicate with.

“Everything has just been great so far.”

CLEMENTE MEDINA (Molina’s Trainer)

“We’ve had some great sparring. We know Amir Khan is considered the greater fighter, but we are hungrier right now, and that’s why we’ll win.

“We are training more with the legs because we know that we will have to move a lot. We’re training hard, like this is a championship fight.”

OSCAR DE LA HOYA (President, Golden Boy Promotions)

“We’re very excited about this main event fight and to be back on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING. We’re extremely fortunate to have Amir Kahn back in action against a tough local fighter in Carlos Molina.

“Once again, we will have an action-packed event. I’m proud and happy that SHOWTIME will televise this great fight card from the L.A. Sports Arena, which has a lot of great history. Danny “Little Red” Lopez fought “Schoolboy” Bobby Chacon in a great, great fight here. That fight, like Kahn against Molina matched youth vs. experience.

“It’s always great to do fights in Los Angeles and what better way than with Amir Kahn in the headliner. Amir is always entertaining, always on his game and always in great shape. He’s also always prepared to put on a great show and go 12 hard rounds.

“Amir’s been there and fought the best of the best and wants to prove he’s the No. 1 fighter pound-for-pound in the world.

“In Molina we have a fighter who comes to fight, has made a name for himself on the local scene in L.A. and has been on several high-profile cards.

“This is not an easy comeback fight for Kahn. He could have taken an easier fight, but once again he chose to fight a tough, unbeaten guy in his backyard. It shows what kind of character Amir has.

“With the December 15th event so close to Christmas, we here at Golden Boy Promotions decided to do a fanfest. Anyone with a ticket can participate in all the events leading up to the fights. It’s a family-friendly experience where fans will be able to get autographs and have photos taken with some of their most favorite fighters from around the world. It’s our way of saying thank you for all their continued support.”

ASIF VALI (Khan Promotions)

“I want to thank everyone for having us here. The Sports Arena is a fantastic facility. Muhammad Ali fought here and a “Rocky” movie was filmed here.

“I’d like to wish Team Molina all the best.

“We went back to the drawing board after Amir’s last fight. We made a lot of changes, all because we wanted to make Amir the great fighter we thought he could be. We parted ways with Freddie Roach. There were 20-25 trainers to choose from, but we brought in Virgil Hunter to see what he would bring to the table.

“The first big test is December 15th. We know this is Molina’s coming out party, but it’s Amir’s coming in party. He will make a statement. He will show all the people who ever doubted him.”

STEPHEN ESPINOZA

“Amir Khan vs. Carlos Molina will cap off what is likely the highest-profile and most star-studded run of fights in the history of SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING. Over the last few months SHOWTIME has already brought you established stars such as Victor Ortiz, Robert Guerrero, Canelo Alvarez, Devon Alexander, Paulie Malignaggi and the legendary Erik Morales, and the new faces and stars of tomorrow, Lucas Matthysse, Danny Garcia and Peter Quillin.

“On Dec. 15 we have a classic match-up between two exciting fighters: the established star, Amir Kahn against the up-and-comer, Carlos Molina. Each has questions to answer. Each has a lot at stake.

“We are very excited to have Amir fighting on SHOWTIME for the first time and look forward to having him on SHOWTIME for the rest of his career. We are also looking forward to seeing Carlos Molina, who is also fighting for the first time on SHOWTIME and will be striving to make a great first impression.

“One programming note: The Nov. 10 telecast starts at 7:30 (PT). A half-hour before, at 7, “All Access: Cotto vs. Trout’ – Epilogue” will premiere on SHOWTIME. This episode will give fans an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at fight week and the aftermath of the December 1 fight between Miguel Cotto and Austin Trout.”

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Khan vs. Molina is presented by Golden Boy Promotions and Khan Promotions and sponsored by Corona. The SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING telecast begins live at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast) with preliminary fights live on SHOWTIME EXTREME® beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the West Coast). The Sky Sports 1HD telecast begins live at 1:00 a.m. GMT on Sunday, December 16.

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com, follow us on Twitter at, www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/AmirKingKhan, www.twitter.com/CarlosMolina562, , www.twitter.com/SHOsports, follow the conversation using #KhanMolina or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing or www.facebook.com/SHOsports.

LOS ANGELES (October 25, 2012) – Following the death of Emanuel Steward, one of boxing’s most important contemporary figures, former 10-Time World Champion in Six Weight Divisions and President of Golden Boy Promotions, Oscar De La Hoya who trained under Steward in 1997 commented:

“It brings me great grief and sadness to hear of the passing of one of the best and most respected trainers of this era, Emanuel Steward.

“I learned a lot from him during our professional relationship and I will be forever grateful for his help during that time.

“We were also friends and I know I am going to miss him as so many others will too. He was an important part of our boxing community.”

New York, NY (October 18, 2012) – With four world title bouts scheduled and an undercard stacked with elite talent kicking off boxing’s debut at the Barclays Center, Captain Boyd “Rainmaker” Melson understands they’ll be a ton of people watching him Saturday evening. Additionally, Golden Boy Promotions Founder and boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya announced that he’s personally contributing to Justadollarplease.org, the charity Melson’s donated all of his fight purses to.

“There’s definitely a lot of pressure on me for this fight but I’m far more excited than nervous, especially after Oscar announced at the press conference that he’s helping Justadollarplease.org,” said Melson, who twice fought on big cards headlined by world title matchups. “This is something different than ever before because I’m going to be a part of history and people have been talking about the first fight card at the Barclays Center as long as I can remember.”

To ensure he’s sharp as a razor inside the squared circle, Melson returned to the gym just three days after dominating Yolexcy Leiva on September 22. Against Leiva, Melson displayed drastic improvements from his prior bout, but knows he’ll have to be even better when he fights in front of a packed house in his native Brooklyn.

“It’s an honor to be fighting on the same night as some of the sport’s top talents,” said Melson, who attended Brooklyn Technical High School, which is a five minute walk from the Barclays Center. “There are a lot of people coming to see me fight and all of the other fighters on the card have large fan bases too. I can’t wait to go out and give the fans a great performance. I’ve never been this excited before!”

Melson battles tough New Yorker Jason Thompson, who fought six undefeated opponents, and his full fight purse will once again go to Justadollarplease.org to support bringing clinical trials to the United States to help cure Spinal Cord Injuries.

In association with the 501 (C) 3 nonprofit Justadollarplease.org, Melson and his best friend Christan Zaccagnino created Team Fight to Walk, whose mission is to raise awareness within the boxing community as well as the entire nation about the importance of bringing Clinical Trials to the United States to help cure Spinal Cord Injuries. Team Fight to Walk is comprised of Melson, Zaccagnino, former Rutgers football player/ESPY honoree Eric LeGrand, two-time cruiserweight champion Steve “USS” Cunningham, title contender DeAndre “The Bull” Latimore, Edgar “El Chamaco” Santana, Hector “Machito” Camacho Jr., 2008 US Olympians Demetrius “Boo” Andrade and Shawn Estrada along with prospects Sid “The Messenger” El Harrak, Jeff “TNT” Spencer, Denis “Da Momma’s Boy” Douglin, Will “Power” Rosinsky, Floriano “Italiano” Pagliara, Danny “Little Mac” McDermott, Vinny “The Lion” O’Brien, Ahmed “Prince of Egypt” Samir and Delen “Sniper” Parsley.

For more information or to make a donation, go to teamfighttowalk.com or Justadollarplease.org. All specific questions about the nature of the Clinical Trial to cure Spinal Cord Injury can be sent to boydmelson@yahoo.com.

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 3, 2012) – Oscar De La Hoya formally announced yesterday at ESPN Zone L.A. Live that undefeated Abner Mares (24-0-1, 13 KO’s), of Hawaiian Gardens, Calif., would defend his WBC Super Bantamweight World Championship against WBA Bantamweight Super World Champion Anselmo Moreno (33-1-1, 12 KO’s), of Panama City, Panama, in the main event on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING on Saturday, Nov. 10, at STAPLES Center live on SHOWTIME® (9 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the West Coast).

In other televised fights, exciting, hard-hitting junior middleweight Alfred Angulo (20-2, 17 KO’s), of Los Angeles by way of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, will make his highly anticipated return in his initial start under trainer Virgil Hunter and first fight in a year against Raul Casarez (19-2, 9 KO’s) of Edinburg, Texas. Undefeated IBF Bantamweight Champion Leo Santa Cruz (21-0-1, 12 KO’s), of Lincoln Heights, Calif., who is coming off an eye-opening fifth-round TKO win over former world champ Eric Morel, will make his second defense against an opponent to be determined. A fourth bout will be announced soon.

Tickets, priced at $200, $100, $50 and $25, not including applicable service charges and taxes, are on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets, online at www.ticketmaster.com, by phone at (800) 745-3000 or at the STAPLES Center Box Office.

Mares vs. Moreno is a 12-round battle for Mares’ WBC Super Bantamweight World Championship promoted by Golden Boy Promotions taking place on November 10 at STAPLESCenter in Los Angeles. The event is sponsored by Corona and AT&T and will be televised live on SHOWTIME.

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com and www.staplescenter.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing, www.twitter.com/AbnerMares00, www.twitter.com/ChemitoMoreno, www.twitter.com/ElPerro82, www.twitter.com/STAPLESCenterLA, www.twitter.com/SHOsports, follow the conversation using #MaresMoreno or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing or www.facebook.com/SHOsports.

What Mares, Moreno, Santa Cruz, Angulo and De La Hoya said yesterday:

ABNER MARES

“It’s an honor to be headlining at STAPLESCenter, but I really don’t think about it. I’m just excited to be fighting a guy like Chemito, who people say is a pound-for-pound fighter, which he is. The fans have been asking for a fight like this for a long time. I think they’re happy that it is going to happen.

“I’m also excited for my hometown fans and friends, who’ll get the chance to see this fight live, but I know I can’t get caught up with stuff like that. This is a big fight for me, for both of us, and a great opportunity to showcase my talents.

“Chemito hasn’t lost in 10 years. He is a very difficult fighter, very talented, a technical, defensive fighter who knows his way around a ring. This is a tremendously hard fight for me, but one I wanted. I’ve been training very hard.

“I don’t want people to like me; I want them to respect me. I want to fight the best. The big winners on Nov. 10 will be the fans.

“I’d like to thank everyone responsible for making it happen. I look forward to defending my title and giving it all I have.”

ANSELMO “CHEMITO” MORENO

“After I beat Vic Darchinyan (Dec. 3, 2011, on SHOWTIME), I made a challenge to all the top fighters at 118 and 122. I got this offer and I took it. I am moving up to 122 pounds because that’s where the money and the big names are.

“I wanted a challenge at 122 pounds and this is a big one. This is a great opportunity. Abner Mares is a great champion. I’m looking forward to Nov. 10 and fighting a fellow champion of the world.

“After this fight I will sit down with my team to see what I want to do next – whether I want to stay at 122 or move back down to 118.”

LEO SANTA CRUZ

“I think people really started noticing me after my last fight against Morel (Sept. 15). I go places now and people recognize me more than ever before.

“It’s great to be fighting again so soon and I thank everyone involved for keeping me busy. I’ve been training really hard, and I think I’m getting better with each fight. It doesn’t matter who I fight because I train the same for all of them and will never underestimate any opponent.

“This will be my first fight at STAPLES so it is very exciting for me. I hope a lot of people come out.”

ALFRED “PERRO” ANGULO

“I really want to thank my lawyers, everybody really, who helped clear up all my visa issues so that I could fight again. Without them, there is no way I would be in L.A. today and getting ready for a fight.

“I also want to thank Golden Boy and SHOWTIME. I’m working now with Virgil Hunter and will be very prepared to go at it on Nov. 10.

“It’s really great to be back in business, doing what I really want to do.”

OSCAR DE LA HOYA

“I’m extremely proud to put this type of show together for the fans. We have a tremendous card once again, a quadruple-header that is showcasing some of the best fighters in the world. Whether you are at STAPLESCenter on Nov. 10 or watching on SHOWTIME, this will be an exciting night of boxing.

“I’d like to thank everyone responsible for making this event a reality, especially those at STAPLESCenter and Stephen Espinoza of SHOWTIME.

LAS VEGAS – And in an instant, Martinez-Chavez went from Pacquiao-De La Hoya to Chavez-Taylor.

Not since Manny Pacquiao retired Oscar De La Hoya had a small southpaw looked so profoundly dominant against a larger titlist as Sergio Martinez looked against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. for 11 rounds. And not since Chavez Sr. came back to stop Meldrick Taylor in the final seconds of a fight he was losing lopsidedly had such a profound change of fortunes been brought to a world champion the way Chavez brought it to Martinez in the 12th.

Saturday night, in a match at Thomas & Mack Arena that disappointed all expectations of suspense for 33 minutes before becoming an unforgettable thing in its final three, Argentine middleweight champion Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KOs) rose from the canvas in the final round to survive and decision Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1-1, 32 KOs) by unanimous scores of 117-110, 118-109 and 118-109. The 15rounds.com ringside scorecard concurred, marking 117-110 for Martinez – while marking the final round 10-7 for Chavez.

“We are two professionals,” Martinez said afterwards. “And we comported ourselves as professionals.”

The fight began the way all prognosticators believed it would. Martinez’s class was too much for Chavez in the first round and each of its successors. What little sense of geometry Chavez showed in the opening round, extending Martinez’s circles to the perimeter somewhat, was gone by the third.

“I began slowly,” Chavez said in the ring after the judges’ cards were read. “But I will not do that in the rematch.”

In fact, not till the sixth round did Chavez land anything consequential. Though Chavez was the much larger man, Martinez was the far more balletic, polished, athletic and accurate, hitting Chavez with nifty left uppercut leads and other inventive combinations. Chavez, sporting a knee brace and suffering abrasions and swelling round both eyes, was not dissuaded, however.

“This confirms me in boxing,” said Martinez, to an outnumbered but surprisingly vocal Argentinean group of fans. “Long live Argentina!”

More fatigued than he knew as the bell for the 12th rang, Martinez walked into a short Chavez left hook that wobbled and shocked him in the final two minutes. Martinez’s eyes bulged and he collapsed in the ropes. A pair of rights and lefts from Chavez then tossed him limply to the canvas. But Martinez rose, ran, held, slipped, and ultimately punched his way to the final bell, as suddenly enchanted Mexican fans rabidly urged their man on.

“Of course,” Martinez said when asked if he would grant Chavez a rematch.

“Long live Mexico!” cried Chavez at the end of his postfight interview.

ROMAN MARTINEZ VS. MIGUEL BELTRAN JR.
In an attempt at prophecy, or at least wishful thinking, Saturday’s excellent Top Rank co-main event featured a hard-pressing Mexican slugger named “Junior” against a foreigner named Martinez. Unfortunately for the emotional Mexican crowd, the Mexican did not prevail.

Fighting for a vacant WBO super featherweight title, Puerto Rican Roman Martinez (26-1-1, 16 KOs) sneaked past Mexican Miguel Beltran Jr. (27-2-0-1, 17 KOs), besting him by split-decision scores of 116-111, 113-114 and 113-114. The fight would have been a majority draw, were it not for a penalty assessed to Beltran in the championship rounds.

Each round of Martinez-Beltran featured punches both well leveraged and well landed by both fighters, but in each of the opening six rounds, regardless of what Martinez did, Beltran appeared to do a little more. In the sixth, Beltran landed the match’s most-devastating punch, a right cross that snapped Martinez’s head back between his own shoulder blades.

The seventh round, though, saw Martinez begin to establish a more effective attack, catching Beltran on the way in, with oddly placed punches. But by the middle of the eighth, Beltran again appeared the stronger man. By the end of the 10th, Martinez, game as he was, did not appear to want much more.

The 11th brought a point deduction to Beltran’s tally from overly officious Nevada referee Russell Mora, though, tightening ringside scorecards somewhat. Martinez also flurried in the 12th, appearing to steal that stanza as well. Ultimately, the fight was a close one that might have gone either way and probably should have gone the way of a majority draw.

MATTHEW MACKLIN VS. JOACHIM ALCINE
Matthew Macklin makes his ring entrance to a hybrid song of “Mack the Knife” and “Rocky Road to Dublin,” in a two-part nod to his nickname and heritage. But Saturday, he didn’t have to take his opponent very far down a rocky road before knifing him.

In the penultimate match of the evening’s undercard, Macklin (29-4, 20 KOs) caught Canadian middleweight Joachim Alcine (33-3-1, 19 KOs) with a flush right cross in the opening moments of the fight then marched him down, dropped him a second time and brought the match to an exciting knockout conclusion at 2:36 of round 1.

Despite a record with four losses on it, Macklin again proved that he can rally a crowd and make an exciting, satisfying match whomever he is given for an opponent.

GUILLERMO RIGONDEAUX VS. ROBERTO MARROQUIN
After a 2010 showing in Cowboys Stadium that brought loud boos from those fans not yawning, Cuban super bantamweight Guillermo Rigondeaux needed two years of exciting knockouts to make fans forget how displeasing his defense-first style can be. Saturday in Thomas & Mack Arena, though, they were reminded once more.

Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KOs) successfully, and rather easily, defended his WBA super bantamweight title against tough if limited Texan Roberto Marroquin (22-2, 15 KOs) by unanimous scores of 118-108, 118-108 and 118-109. And if there is a prizefighter today who fights like Floyd Mayweather as well as Mayweather does, he is Rigondeaux, right down to the cautiousness.

Rigondeaux established a superiority of reflex over Marroquin – a superiority of reflex Rigondeaux enjoys over most every opponent he faces – and then put the match on a form of cruise control that did little to entice fans. Possessed of every punch and step in the boxing lexicon, Rigondeaux does not appear to enjoy physical matches with larger men, and he certainly did not look for one with Marroquin, who appeared a weight class or two larger than Rigondeaux on Saturday.

Twice in the match Marroquin managed to land a pulled left hook that temporarily destabilized the Cuban southpaw’s otherwise flawless footing, but from each of those faux scares, Rigondeaux quickly recovered and returned to mastering Marroquin technically if not combatively.

In round 10, bored by Rigondeaux-Marroquin, the crowd – partisan Mexican though with an Argentinean contingent – began to sing futbol songs at one another till the match was over, despite Rigondeaux’s scoring the match’s one knockdown in its final two minutes.

MIKE LEE VS. PAUL HARNESS
Mike Lee is undoubtedly the best light heavyweight on the Notre Dame campus, but he is decidedly not the best light heavyweight in the world. Further evidence of this came at the midway point of Saturday’s undercard when Lee (11-0, 6 KOs) whacked away at Kansas City opponent Paul Harness (4-4-1, 3 KOs) for four rounds and ultimately prevailed by unanmious scores of 40-36, 40-36 and 40-36.

Questions about Lee’s power – he landed at least four clean right hands in every round without once felling Harness – and his defense, though, remain, and grow, with every showing. Despite leading comfortably in the fourth round, Lee nevertheless was tagged by several knee-buckling shots by Harness.

UNDERCARD
Highly regarded super welterweight John Jackson brought his undefeated record in the Thomas & Mack Center ring for Saturday’s third bout, against Cleveland’s Willie Nelson, and Jackson’s ‘0’ left the ring before Jackson did. In a close fight that might have been scored either way, Nelson (19-1-1, 11
KOs) decisioned Nelson (13-1, 12 KOs) by unanimous scores of 96-94, 96-94 and 98-92.

Before that, in an eight-round super welterweight match, Mexican Michael Medina (26-3-2, 19 KOs) scored a lopsided decision victory over North Carolinian James Winchester (15-5, 5 KOs). All three judges had the match 80-70 for Medina.

The evening began with an eight-round, unanimous-decision victory for California welterweight Wale Omotoso (23-0, 19 KOs) over Puerto Rican Daniel Sostre (11-7-1, 4 KOs).

Opening bell rang on a sparsely populated Thomas & Mack Center at 3:17 PM local time.

Manny Pacquiao can be beaten, but this is not news because any man who ties gloves on his fists and makes combat with large and good enough men will be beaten eventually. Manny Pacquiao can be beaten by the man he faces Saturday, and this is news. It is not an outcome aficionados have allowed-for in a Pacquiao fight since at least Miguel Cotto but probably Oscar De La Hoya – and nobody knew what the hell was going to happen in that fight.

Pacquiao was unofficially beaten by Juan Manuel Marquez in November, yes, but you couldn’t find three people to predict it aloud in the MGM Grand Media Center during fightweek. It will be different this week. Pacquiao has not looked sensational against another prime fighter since his second tilt with Marquez in 2008 – another fight he may have lost with every scorecard in an honest hand. None of his recent opponents, not even Marquez seven months ago, prepared him for what he’ll see Saturday, when he faces Timothy Bradley at MGM Grand for the WBO welterweight title.

Bradley, 7-0 in world title fights, is an undefeated 28-year-old volume puncher who leads with his head. That sentence comprises everything needed to beat a subprime Pacquiao.

It has been more than five years since Pacquiao faced someone who had no idea how to lose, and that was the overmatched Jorge Solis at Alamodome in a fight with more anxious moments than one infers today from its boxscore. Those moments came behind a collision of heads that caused a cut to drop blood in Pacquiao’s eye, much as had happened two years before in the last prizefight Pacquiao lost – when Erik Morales took notice of the queasy look Pacquiao showed him after a visit to the ringside doctor. The Solis cut, too, brought a queasy look, one followed immediately by Pacquiao thrice making the Sign of the Cross – forehead to breastbone, left shoulder to right – in rapid succession, before tearing into Solis with a savageness unpredicted by any previous act in the fight.

The Sign of the Cross is a thing young Catholics learn to make in anxious situations, an emergency petition of sorts: I could be in over my head, here, so please watch over me. Pacquiao learned to do it as a child, like millions of others, and has continued to do it through a career that, as discovered in this match’s promotion, saw him occasionally eschew the teachings of Rome. Pacquiao’s rededication to his Catholic faith is sincere, but like other sincere initiatives Pacquiao has launched – like eradicating world poverty with yellow gloves – this one looks flighty.

It should be a private matter, either way, Pacquiao’s born-again Catholicism during a prizefight promotion, but as a matter that exploits Americans’ dual fascinations with evangelism and salesmanship, it was too rich for HBO not to shine its documentary light on – as part of a “24/7” programming concept, once innovative in 2007, that now covers mostly itself and predicts storylines it once discovered.

Pacquiao’s unconventional conversion is a bit relevant, too, because a fighter is not supposed to “feel empty inside” during training camp. If he is not too physically exhausted and mentally obsessed with another man’s injury to partake of such flummery, he’s likely not throwing hard enough at the heavybag. Or is that too ungentle for this era? Well. Can you imagine Marvelous Marvin Hagler, cloistered at the Provincetown Inn – the better to marinate in hatred and rage – having a telegenic advisor to ensure his spirit felt fulfilled? Heavens.

Just another part of the Pacquiao mystique, we are told. The soap-operatic entourage, the constituents in Sarangani Province, record deals, lawsuits and countersuits, the feuding corner, training breaks for Bible study; none of these is a distraction because Pacquiao has preternatural focus in the prizefighting ring. Or he’s been well-matched.

Inherent in most aficionados’ Pacquiao fight predictions has been a wager like this: Too much money to be made in a Floyd Mayweather fight for promoter Top Rank to risk it with a miscue. This has been a well-placed bet on the legendary marriage of matchmaker Bruce Trampler’s prowess and promoter Bob Arum’s business acumen, and their continued assumption a superfight with Mayweather is still doable.

Timothy Bradley’s one other showing at welterweight, an unimpressive 2010 outing with Luis Carlos Abregu, also indicates a prime Pacquiao will have his hand raised Saturday. Bradley is special in his way, special in both style and character, but he is not quite special as a guy who went 4-1-1 (3 KOs) against the primest versions of his era’s three best Mexican champions, as Pacquiao did. When was that prime-Pacquiao last seen, though? Pacquiao is the variable, Saturday, not Bradley; if the Pacquiao who has been showing up since he decked Ricky Hatton makes a pre-concert appearance at MGM Grand later this week, he will get conclusively outworked.

We already know what a volume puncher like Bradley brings: a glorious sort of shamelessness. Bradley doesn’t care much where he hits you and cares even less if you stretch him; so long as he surrenders himself fully to his intensity and does what his corner tells him, he is contented. Bradley doesn’t have to worry about losing because he has never done so as a professional, and because a volume puncher knows quickly when someone is decisively better than he is, as Pacquiao will be, and finds euphoria in breaking that man’s spirit with a want of polish, an enchanting rudeness.

I’ll take Bradley, SD-12, then – with a dissenting 112-116 scorecard filled-out the day before.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com

Somewhere in the 11th round of Saturday’s HBO main event one man’s lovely face expressed wholly what viewers wished to see. It was Oscar De La Hoya’s. Once a great fighter, now a promoter of sorts, De La Hoya, sandwiched between the man who runs his company and his evening’s co-promoter, gazed at the ring, and therefore the camera, with a look that said: “Will they forgive us for this?”

To De La Hoya’s right his co-promoter, Gary Shaw, a more complete manifestation of the American entrepreneurial spirit – If it makes me money, it is good! – showed no remorse for what happened before him. Shaw’s guy was stumbling, holding and fading his way towards another big payday because somewhere it is written in HBO’s charter the winner of Saturday’s eyesore will be paid again and again according to a compensation scale made of durable pixie dust.

But De La Hoya, for all his recent fruitiness, remains a former fighter and a fan. As his autobiography implies, he is the product of two cultures, and one of those cultures watches a confrontation between two men with expectations greater than an accountant’s. And so the best description of what De La Hoya’s handsome countenance showed Saturday was sheepishness.

There was a feeling of quiet embarrassment to the entire main event that was Chad Dawson decisioning Bernard Hopkins for light heavyweight titles at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J., in a rematch to an October fight considered an embarrassment by both casual fans and aficionados.

Pay-per-view receipts, or at least rumors about them, implied there was no appetite for Dawson-Hopkins II. However unfinished the business from their first meeting, a disqualification that ended in a tangle of limbs, winces and recriminations, Dawson and Hopkins’ business together was clearly and shamefacedly finished. The rematch happened anyway.

Chad Dawson fought as a young man embarrassed that his path to celebrity required him to beat on a 47-year-old. Mauling someone born in 1965 seemed to offend Dawson’s sense of decorum, and so he chose not to. In defiance of everything Joe Calzaghe showed the world four years ago, Dawson waited for perfect opportunities – which even at 70 Hopkins would never afford him – and when they didn’t come, Dawson chose not to risk the embarrassment of swinging at and missing a man so much older. Which led Dawson to suffer a greater fear indeed: What if my conditioning fades, and after doing nothing I actually find myself physically incapable in front of this guy? What will people say about me then?

A question of others’ opinions hung limply over the ring from the opening bell. For all Hopkins’ bluster, he is fantastically preoccupied with others’ opinions of him – a preoccupation sometimes dandied up with words like “legacy.” Dawson lies awake at night with the same preoccupation, though without the same chamomile of achievement to soothe him. Dawson fights like a man very much afraid of humiliation.

How delicious might it have been had referee Eddie Cotton played on these men’s capacities for shame? Any round of the middle eight or so, Cotton might have seen them come together in an embrace and shuffled himself to a neutral corner and stood there, shoulders shrugged. After what duration of clinching and playacting at violence – 90 seconds? 110 seconds? – would either Hopkins or Dawson have become ashamed enough to detach himself and throw a punch? Perhaps the embarrassing job would have devolved entirely to the timekeeper’s bell.

There was a moment in the final minute of round 9, though, a three-second intermission from a 30-minute hug, when each man threw more than a single punch at the other. An exchange ensued. Each man took the other’s punches personally and cared more about avenging them than avoiding the embarrassment of missing or being hit. And within that moment came a reminder for posterity: Were this an actual fight rather than a spectacle, were this a private affair not to be stopped until either Hopkins or Dawson had what honorable men once called “satisfaction,” Hopkins, even at age 47, would have prevailed.

Lowering his chin and head and tearing forward to catch his opponent with an accidental right cross or an intentional headbutt, Hopkins was, during most of Saturday’s 12 rounds, still more interested in confrontation than “Bad” Chad Dawson. Hopkins’ performance was unbefitting a man who calls himself “The Executioner” – hell, it was unbefitting an executive order – but it was often as not a representation of the best Hopkins could do. There was not one round about which the same could be said of Dawson’s effort.

After the judges’ tallies were read, after a first card of 114-114 tantalizingly predicted he might have gotten away with something, Hopkins flashed a perfunctory look of disbelief about his loss. It was not shock but obligation. His theatricality retired, or just tired, Hopkins made a tiny down payment of insincerity on the possibility of grifting HBO one more time. Why couldn’t an “On Graterford” special set the table for a retirement match, complete with another contract extension in the event of a win or honorable loss?

Dawson showed less shame still. He summarized Saturday’s incident thusly: “(Hopkins) came back, he fought his heart out, and it was a great fight.” No, Chad, it was a breathing antonym for “great fight.”

Whatever promoters and publicists next try to do with the spectacle of Dawson-Hopkins II, however much obfuscation gets heaped on this thing, there will happily remain the image of Oscar De La Hoya’s beautiful face to tell Saturday’s story all too eloquently.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com.

New York – April 23, 2012 – FOX Sports Media Group (FSMG), the umbrella entity representing News Corporation’s wide array of multi-platform U.S.-based sports assets,announced today that it has reached a multi-year, multi-media agreement with Golden Boy Promotions to provide live boxing content in the United States and internationally. Golden Boy Promotions, owned by renowned former Ten-Time World Champion Oscar de la Hoya, is the first Hispanic-owned boxing promotional company in America doing business domestically and internationally.

Domestically, Golden Boy fights will be carried on FOX Deportes, the leader in U.S. Latino sports media, on FOX Sports regional networks, the nation’s leading provider of local sports and FUEL TV, FSMG’s dynamic sports network for males and television’s fastest-growing cable network. One originally produced boxing event per month from the United States airs live on FOX Deportes, FUEL TV and FOX Sports regional networks. Additionally, live boxing events from cities throughout Mexico will be carried on FOX Deportes. The first U.S. event is scheduled for Friday, May 4 (11:00 PM ET/8:00 PM PT), live from The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and features an all-Mexican battle between former World Champion Daniel Ponce De Leon of Cuauhtemoc and Juarez’s Eduardo “El Chucky” Lazcano in a 12-round main event for the vacant WBC USNBC Super Featherweight title and, in the co-feature, perennial contender and Las Vegas favorite Ishe “Sugar Shay” Smith facing Derrick Ennis in a 10-round junior middleweight bout.

During the first year of the partnership, FOX Deportes is scheduled to air a total of 44 live events originating in both the United States and Mexico; for every year thereafter, the network airs 36 live events. In addition, FSMG networks gain access to classic fights from the Golden Boy fight library which features fights of past and current world champions such as Oscar de la Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera.

“Led by the incomparable Oscar de la Hoya, Golden Boy Promotions has developed a great reputation over the last few years for putting together very exciting cards,” said Bill Wanger, Executive Vice president, Programming & Research, FOX Sports Media Group. “It’s great that we’ve been able to establish what we hope will be a fruitful relationship that benefits multiple networks within the FOX Sports Media Group for years to come.”

“We are excited about our new partnership with FOX Sports Media Group,” said Oscar de la Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. “This is another step in ensuring that fight fans around the world don’t miss out on any of the great boxing action we present, both in the United States and Mexico. It’s a very important move towards increasing viewership and knowledge of our great sport. We are thrilled about this new partnership.”

Internationally, FOX’s networks have exclusive rights to FOX’s U.S.-produced fights throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe and to fight cards originating in Mexico throughout most of South America, the Caribbean and Europe.

Additionally, FOX’s networks have exclusive rights to Golden Boy’s Solo Boxeo series in Mexico and Central America, while FOX Sports Brazil has rights to select Golden Boy Promotions premier events.

LOS ANGELES (May 31, 2011) — Manny Pacquiao has settled his defamation lawsuit against Richard Schaefer and Oscar de la Hoya on confidential terms. In connection with the dismissal, Mr. Schaefer and Mr. De la Hoya made the following statement:

“Richard Schaefer and Oscar de la Hoya, on behalf of themselves and Golden Boy Promotions, wish to make it crystal clear that we never intended to claim that Manny Pacquiao has used or is using any performance enhancing drugs, and further state that we do not have any evidence whatsoever of such use.

“Manny Pacquiao is one of the greatest fighters of all time, and we apologize if anyone construed our prior remarks as in any way claiming or even suggesting that Manny uses or has used performance enhancing drugs.”

Photo By Chris Farina / Top Rank

According to TMZ.com, six-division world champion Oscar De La Hoya has checked himself in a substance abuse treatment center in California.

De La Hoya tells TMZ he feels he will come out “a stronger, healthier person.”

De La Hoya issued a statement to TMZ that reads, “After doing an honest evaluation of myself, I recognize that there are certain issues that I need to work on. Like everyone, I have my flaws, and I do not want to be one of those people that is afraid to admit and address those flaws.

“Throughout my career and my life, I have always met all challenges head-on, and this is no different. I am confident that with the support of my family and friends, I will become a stronger, healthier person.

“I ask for respect and privacy as my family and I go through this process.”

This past Saturday night at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, Golden Boy Promotions hosted a highly entertaining HBO Pay-Per-View dubbed ‘Action Heroes.’ In the main event, light welterweight contender Marcos Maidana survived a surprisingly stiff challenge from aging former champion and all-time great Erik Morales. The undercard featured several other surprises and thrills, as did the post-fight press conference, thanks in large part to the emcee work of Oscar De La Hoya.


Watch Morales-Maidana Post-Fight Press Conference in Sports  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

He may be in the Twilight of his career and zeroing in on his 40th birthday but “Sugar” Shane Mosley is still a tough night’s work for anyone. For a few years now Mosley has wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao, he has got what he wished for and takes on the Filipino Icon on 7 May in Las Vegas at The MGM Grand in front of millions on Showtime PPV. It’s a fight Mosley believes he can win; he has blind faith in his ability and left his position as a partner of Golden Boy Promotions to take up this challenge. Mosley 46-6-1(39) has fought many of the best fighters in the world from 135-154 winning 5 world titles in 3 weight classes. He’s been one of the standard bearers of the past 2 decades fighting 15 past or present world champions including Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto & Floyd Mayweather.

Hello Shane, welcome to 15rounds.com

Anson Wainwright – You are fighting Manny Pacquiao on 7 May in Las Vegas. What are your thoughts on the fight & how good do you think Pacquiao is?

Shane Mosley – I think he’s a great fighter, he does a lot of good things. It’s going to be a terrific fight.

Anson Wainwright – Of course it has been much discussed you have left Golden Boy & will be fighting Pacquiao who’s a Top Rank fighter. How are things?

Shane Mosley – No, it’s moving pretty smoothly along with Top Rank. Everything I have asked for has been ok and I’m just happy.

Anson Wainwright – People will say that you haven’t won in your last two fights and not looked the best in your fights with Mayweather & Mora. What do you say to them?

Shane Mosley – I believe I will do a lot better than I did in those two fights. My mentality right now is I’m ready to go and fight and give my 100% all.

Anson Wainwright – It would of been easy for you to stay with Golden Boy where your were a partner and claim your reported 5% but you’re obviously still highly motivated despite being months shy of 40. What are your thoughts on this?

Shane Mosley – I’m very motivated and happy to be able to box at this age. I’ve been boxing for about 31 years and I’ve fought at this level a lot. I’m willing to go in there and prove that I’m still one of the best fighters and fighting Pacquaio will prove that and be a great accomplishment for me.

Anson Wainwright – The Mayweather fight wasn’t your finest hour in the ring. Could you talk us through the fight from your point of view along with the second round?

Shane Mosley – A lot of times I don’t look back on them or think about them (The fights). But it was a pretty good punch, I just couldn’t at that point do what I needed to do to win the fight to KO him but I’ve been working very hard to make sure I close the deal next time I get a person hurt.

Anson Wainwright – If I can take you back to the Margarito fight, going into that fight you had a lot going on outside the ring. The on fight night there was the gauzing that went into Margarito glove. How much of what was going on were you aware of or were you just focused on the fight?

Shane Mosley – Yeah I was just focusing on my game plan, because if he had concrete gloves on I didn’t care I was going to win that fight. I trained hard, I was determined to prove the critic’s and everybody wrong that I was to old and that his rhythm was to much for me and he was going to knock me out and retire me. And I did I stopped him and proved the critics wrong. I’m going to do that in this fight as well.

Anson Wainwright – Do you see this fight with Pacquiao similar to the Margarito one where you were also the underdog and have something to prove?

Shane Mosley – Yeah, I aim to do it again. I aim to shock the world and beat Pacquiao. Once again prove the critics wrong.

Anson Wainwright – How much longer do you think you can keep performing at the top of Boxing? Do you have any plans for what you’d like to do when your finish Boxing?

Shane Mosley – Well yeah I have my promotional company “Sugar” Shane Mosley Promotions and I’m looking to start signing fighters and get more active in the promotional field and help these young fighters become world champions and superstars. That would be another great challenge for me. After this fight I have another 3 or 4 fights in me, then I can start my promotional company.

Anson Wainwright – You’re son Shane Junior is also an up and coming boxer. How are things developing with him and his career?

Shane Mosley – He’s doing pretty good; he’s up here training with me now. Basically I’m just showing him the ropes right now what you have to go through to be world champion and that’s important mentally so he can see what it takes, realise if it’s for him or not. He’s doing good, his punches are pretty hard, and he’s getting faster and better as the days go by. I think he’s going to be alright.

Anson Wainwright – A chip off the old block hey?

Shane Mosley – Ha-ha I think so, he has the determination and he’s getting better and better as we go along.

Anson Wainwright – Has he had any amateur fights yet?

Shane Mosley – He’s had a few, I think I’ll start fighting him more so he can have the experience of fighting in the ring more. He’s been in the ring sparring a lot but not really fighting. There’s a difference between fighting and sparring, that’s what I aim to do a little more.

Anson Wainwright – You’ve fought many of the best fighters of the last 15 years. Who is the best fighter you’ve ever fought?

Shane Mosley – Styles make fights but the most difficult I’d say Winky (Wright) earlier in my career but later on Floyd (Mayweather) was a pretty good defensive fighter as well.

Anson Wainwright – To date what do you consider to be your proudest moment in Boxing?

Shane Mosley – I think the proudest moment was winning my first world title at Lightweight against Philip Holiday.

Anson Wainwright – What are your thoughts on the current Welterweight division?

Shane Mosley – I think there’s a lot of great challenge’s with Khan coming up. Me & Manny Pacquiao fighting, there’s others. The division’s good an exciting. There’s a lot of great talent out there.

Anson Wainwright – You’re known as one of boxing good guys but we don’t know to much about you away from Boxing. Can you tell us about other activities you are involved with? Also what are your hobbies & Interests?

Shane Mosley – Well I mean, I’m a family man, I have 4 kids. I like to play Basketball, snowboard, bowl. I’m a very active person, I’m an outdoors person. I like to get out and do things. Boxings in my heart so I don’t stray too far from that. I’m involved in a boxing programme and sponsor the kids in the community.

Anson Wainwright – Last year you teamed up with PETA to help stop dog fighting & the slaughter on Seal trade in Canada, it’s obviously something that’s close to your heart?

Shane Mosley – Well yeah, I have a few pets. Dog’s don’t have a choice to fight or not but we do. So I kind of got behind it and just spoke out about it.

Anson Wainwright – Finally do you have a message for your fans ahead of the Pacquiao fight?

Shane Mosley – This is going to be the fight you don’t want to miss. I’m definitely giving everything I’ve got. You wont be disappointed so come and check it out or watch it on PPV Showtime. It’s definitely going to be a knock out. Also follow me on Sugar Shane on Twitter.

Thank you for your time Shane, it’s been a pleasure.

Anson Wainwright

15rounds.com

Midweek Thoughts – Yuriorkis Gamboa looked sensational blowing away Jorge Solis on Saturday. Solis was no mug he was a very solid guy, he just couldn’t deal with the Cuban’s power and speed. Hopefully Juanma Lopez looks just as impressive in a few weeks and Top Rank can get these two together in what would surely be a barnburner…Mikey Garcia kept his unbeaten record but took Matt Remillard’s when Remillard’s corner mercifully stopped the fight at the end of the tenth. Garcia is only 23 but has the look of a man far more experience. He systematically broke down Remillard. Outside of Gamboa & Lopez, Garcia is right in the fight with anyone at Featherweight right now…I haven’t had chance to see it yet but the Kennedy-Diaz fight appeared to be a cracker…Disappointing to see Erislandy Lara on Friday night not really perform, all credit to Carlos Molina…On Saturday Leo Santa Cruz scored a very impressive KO over Stephane Jamoye, it’s the biggest win of Santa Cruz career & proved he can go place, I’m looking for him to have a big year now…I’ve been told Ricardo Mayorga dislocated his thumb in the Cotto fight. He’s also on the short list to fight Saul Alvarez in September provided “Canelo” wins in a June fight possibly against Ryan Rhodes. I’ll say this much if Mayorga does decide to give it another go and not retire a fight with “Canelo” would be a fun promotion. Alvarez wont ever of seen anything or anyone quite like Mayorga.

On Friday night it was the final of the WABA (Welsh Amateur Boxing Association)

Female

54kg Lynsey Holdaway beat Catherine Gillen after the referee stopped the action with Holdaway 20-1 up in the fourth and final round.

60kg Rebecca Price beat defending champion Ashley Brace 14-10.

Male

49kg Ben Baker beat Annes Rashid in the second round Rashid took two standing 8 counts before being stopped

52kg Two time European Bronze medallist Andrew Selby returned from his duty on the British squad to show the gulf in class as he stopped Andrew Perry in the second after Perry had two standing 8 counts in the first.

56kg Daniel Chapman run out 14-1 winner against last years Flyweight champion Jay Harris

60kg Zack Davies outpointed Craig Woodruff 16-4

64kg Chris Jenkins the Welsh representative in last years Commonwealth games beat Ashley Appleby when the referee stopped the action in the second. Jenkins was 9-0 up at the time of the stoppage

69kg Fred Evans who also went to the Commonwealth games won 18-8 against Jamie Evans.

75kg Liam Williams outpointed warren Sinden 19-4

81kg Charlie Moseley narrowly outpointed Tom Lloyd 13-9

91kg Lloyd Davies impressively overwhelmed Robert Penn and after 3 standing 8 counts the fight was called off in the second round.

91+kg Dorian Darch beat Andrew Wyn Davies 16-9 stopping Davies winning the title for the 5th consecutive year.

If you would like to hear from any particular fighters please e-mail me on elraincoat@live.co.uk

It’s never dull when Ricardo Mayorga’s about that’s for sure. For the past decade the Wildman from Nicaragua has enthralled us with all action style and bad guy ways. Now 37, Mayorga 29-7-1(23) may not be a young fighter but he still feels he has a role to play. He firmly believes he’ll KO Miguel Cotto on 12 March in Las Vegas and then get a shot a Manny Pacquiao in what he thinks will be his career defining moment. Mayorga first sprang to prominence beating Andrew Lewis for the WBA Welterweight title, he then stunned Vernon Forrest KO3 to add the WBC title to his collection. He then won a rematch before losing a majority decision for all the marbles against Cory Spinks. He became a two weight world champion when he claimed the WBC laurels beating Michele Piccarillo in 2005. Never one to turn down a challenge Mayorga has fought many of the top fighters of his generation including Felix Trinidad LKO8, Oscar De La Hoya LKO6, Fernando Vargas PTS12 & Shane Mosley LKO12.

Hello Ricardo, welcome to 15rounds.com

Anson Wainwright – You have a big fight coming up against Miguel Cotto on 12 March in Las Vegas. What do you think of that fight and Cotto as a fighter?

Ricardo Mayorga – I think that he a punched out old fighter and I’m going to knock him out quickly.

Anson Wainwright – In your last fight your stopped Michael Walker in nine rounds. Can you tell us how you felt after so long out of the ring?

Ricardo Mayorga – I was very strong, I wasn’t in the best shape but I was in good shape and now I’m even better.

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us why you had so long out of the ring? You didn’t fight in over 2 years, what happened?

Ricardo Mayorga – I had an automobile accident and I was out for 2 years. I was operated on, I had a minor operation on my back.

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us about your team for this fight, who is your manager, trainer & promoter? Also what gym do you train at in America?

Ricardo Mayorga – My Promoter is Don King, my trainer is Luis Leon and Al Bonami is co-training me. I don’t have a manager, I do that myself. Where training for this fight in Ocala, Fl. at Danny Santiago’s gym called Central Florida Boxing. Danny is still fighting but was a ranked Light Heavyweight & Cruiserweight.

Anson Wainwright – You always seem to make weight with ease, why is this and what is your walk around weight between fights?

Ricardo Mayorga – I’m about 161/162 right now. I never really have trouble with my weight, that’s why I’m always underweight. I’m going to come in 152 when I fight Cotto and I’m going to be eating Puerto Rican beans!

Anson Wainwright – You love to play the villain and regularly try to get under your opponents skin. Is this who you are, can you tell us about your nicer side?

Ricardo Mayorga – I always like to a bad guy like in the movies.

Al Bonanni – I started with him when he came to the United States and we were together until he won the title and then I left because he’s a lot to handle and then I worked with him for Trinidad and left again. As far as a person, I love him, I really like him, he’s a wonderful person. We get along very good, we have no problems. He calls me Papi Gordo which is Far Man! Ha-ha He’s a very nice person to me. I have no problems with him. He has a wonderful personality. I don’t believe the energy he has.

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us about your younger days growing up in Managua did you have a tough time growing up?

Ricardo Mayorga – It was really tough, we were very poor. I always used to fight in the streets and in school. I was always in a fight.

Anson Wainwright – What do you like to do when your not Boxing, what are your hobbies and Interests?

Ricardo Mayorga – Playing Billiards and I like to play cards like poker with family.

Anson Wainwright – What is the proudest moment of your career so far?

Ricardo Mayorga – It still hasn’t come to it, the greatest will be when I beat Pacquiao.

Anson Wainwright – You have fought many of the best fighters of your generation including De Le Hoya, Forrest, Mosley, Vargas, Spinks & Trinidad. Who do you consider the best ?

Ricardo Mayorga – For me De La Hoya.

Anson Wainwright – What would you like to do when your retire from Boxing?

Ricardo Mayorga – I want to put the money I earned in the bank and live on a ranch in Nicaragua.

Anson Wainwright – Are there any up an coming fighters you would like to mention from Nicaragua?

Ricardo Mayorga – Right now there isn’t anyone.

Anson Wainwright – Much has been said about you on wiki-leaks with regards an incident between you and a young lady & your relationship with President Ortega. Could you give us your thoughts?

Ricardo Mayorga – I don’t have any comment on that. I have the president’s respect and he has mine. All that on the Internet is just baloney. The only thing I can say is the president is a just man and he’s a good man and we have a good relationship.

Anson Wainwright – Finally do you have a message for your fans?

Ricardo Mayorga – Buy the PPV it’s going to be a great fight and I’m going to knock him out in 4 rounds.

Thank you for your Time Ricardo & Al.

Anson Wainwright
15rounds.com

Special thanks Al Bonanni

Relentless Preview – As well as the Cotto-Mayorga main event the Showtime PPV will have several other bouts. Miguel Vazquez 27-3(12) will be defending his IBF Lightweight title for the second time against unbeaten mandatory challenger Lenny Zappavigna 25-0(17). It pits the classic boxer (Vazquez) against the fighter (Zappavigna). We’ll also see the return of both Joshua Clottey 35-4(20) & Yuri Foreman 28-1(8) in seperate Light Middleweight bouts. Clottey hasn’t been seen since his tentative performance against Manny Pacquiao a year ago will be up against Calvin Green 21-5-1(13). While Foreman was last seen 9 months ago when he injured his knee and lost his title to Cotto meets Pawel Wolak 28-1(18). Amateur standout Matt Korobov 13-0(8) see’s action for the first time in 2011 when he meets Michael Walker 19-6-2(12) over 8 rounds. Also scheduled for action Lightweight Juan Gonzalez 10-0(9), Heavyweights Eric Molina 16-1(12) & Tommy Zbikowski 1-0(1), Featherweight Jesus Rojas 16-1(12) & the return of the ever popular Christy Martin 49-5-3(31).