I'm not sure if Timothy Bradley has a horseshoe in his pocket or not,but I do know that he has been very fortunate in getting his last three decisions.
I thought Bradley clearly lost to Manny Pacquiao and lost (on my card) narrowly to Ruslan Provodnikov before last Saturday's split decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez that I scored a draw.
I admire Bradley's skills and heart (shown most prominently against Provodinkov),but if most of us had that kind of luck,We'd play the lottery every week.
Ruslan Provodnikov has parlayed his narrow loss to Bradley (He dropped Bradley twice) into an HBO bout with Mike Alvarado in Denver tonight.
Provodnikov,who is undefeated in my eyes, against Alvarado looks to be a contender on paper to be action fight of the year,but I get the feeling that it may disappoint.
Alvarado boxed more in his rematch that he won against Brandon Rios than in his first Rios fight,which was a great action fight,but a losing effort and I believe he will try that tactic against Provodnikov.
Alvarado took a bit to make weight and that is a factor to me.
I like Provodnikov in this one that will also show the Bradley-Marquez bout on HBO tonight....
Give credit to UniMas,the spanish language network that I watch their bouts on Saturday night.
Besides the fact that I now know the words unanimous,split,majority and draw in spanish,I have the benefit of seeing some pretty solid fights,but even I am excited about their pickup of the November bout of former flyweight champions Hernan Marquez and Giovanni Segura.
That bout should be filled with action and might earn some fight of the year consideration.
The winner becomes a mandatory contender for a flyweight strap....
Some times when you want a fight too much and things get in the way (rival promotional issues,money etc),you can take the luster off a fight.
We saw that when various issues took the shine off the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao dream fight and we saw again between Nonito Donaire and Abner Mares.
Everyone thought it was a cannot miss bout in action with the top two fighters at that weight and the Golden Boy-Top Rank promotional war got in the way.
Donaire lost a decision to the talented but oh so boring Guillermo Rigondeaux in what was an awful style matchup for Donaire and then Mares was starched in one round by veteran Jhonny Gonzalez,who had one shot at victory-landing a bomb,which Gonzalez did just that.
Even if both redeem themselves in time,the Donaire-Mares match will never reach the importance that it could have,if they had gotten into the ring this year..
Give tons of credit to the connections of two time Gold Medal winner Vasyl Lomachenko,who wanted a title fight for his first fight in the pros.
Top Rank said that could not be done,but if Lomachenko beat a contender in his debut,he could get a title bout in his second fight.
Lomachenko dropped Jose Ramirez in round one and finished him in the fourth on the Bradley-Marquez undercard and showed the type of talent that I think makes him the favorite against veteran Orlando Salido in his next bout for Salido's belt that he won over Orlando Cruz on the same undercard.
Word is that if Lomachenko tops Salido that he might next fight Guillermo Rigondeaux in a fight that would see two fighters and four Olympic golds....
I thought Wladimir Klitschko clearly won against Alexander Povetkin,but his grabbing and pushing tactics did not exactly make the champion shine.
The fact that he did not get penalized until late in the fight changed the ability of Povetkin to stay in the fight physically by not being worn down by the larger man.
I also didn't think the all four knockdowns by Klitschko were actually knockdowns either.
I am not saying Klitschko didn't win,he did by a large margin,but all things considered-it was not that impressive....
Finally,there may be bigger bouts than WBC 175 pound champ Adonis Stevenson and minor belt holder Sergey Kovalev,but there might not be a better action fight than between these two bombers and HBO agrees as both will fight on the same card in November.
Stevenson against mandatory contender Tony Bellew (See Denise !) and Kovalev against Ismayl Sillakh should lead to an early 2014 fight between the pair to see just who is the top light heavyweight and maybe the top puncher in the game.....
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