December 8th Fight Night

Anyone catch this weekends match ups?

Was flicking between Channel 5, Sky and even saw a couple of Jobber fights on Primetime.

The end of the Eubanks Jr fight was an absolute farce and I hope that referee get's relegated to lower events. Looked a promising brawl until he stepped in and stopped the fight in favour of CE Jr.

It was a nice come back fight by Darren Barker with a stoppage over Kerry Hope in the 4th Round of their fight. It was a fight that was dominated from the off, almost like Barker was making a point with his comeback. Will be interesting to see how he does in the new year.

The James DeGale fight went the full distance with former World Champion Zuniga - Zuniga was down in round 3 - but got up and kept getting second winds to keep DeGale on his toes. I'm still not convinced with DeGale - he lacked the finishing instinct, there was times Zuniga was rocked and with a bit more pressure would have been taken out, but, DeGale couldnt seem to kill him off. Can't see DeGale progressing any further than British / Commonwealth / European titles really at this current stage anyway - in a division with the likes of Froch, Kessler, Ward, Groves (who has already beaten him) and probably Eubanks Jr when he steps up in weight, it doesn't look too great for him.

The Brian Magee v Kessler fight was a bit of a mismatch in class really - Magee came into it as Champion, but, he'd always been known to have problems with Body Shots - anyway, it took only until the 2nd round until Kessler landed a couple of lethal body blows to Magee - it was a round that seen Magee go down twice, and only just about make the end of round bell to get back to his corner. It took just under 30 seconds in the 3rd round before Magee suffered another knockdown and the ref had to step in and say enough was enough for the Northern Irish boxer. This division could unfold like this in the next year-

Between Jan - March

• Ward will beat Pavlik in February (easily I think) to retain his WBA Super Champ status along with his WBC and The Ring Titles.
• Kessler will fight Arthur Abraham for the WBO title and hopefully beat him.
• Froch will either have a rematch with Bute in Canada or Number 1 Mandatory opponent Adonis Stevenson - hopefully beat either of them.

Between April - August

• Ward will defend his titles against another weaker opponent or continue to be injured and not fight
• Froch will fight Kessler and get revenge winning the WBA and WBO title's whilst retaining his IBF.

Between September - December

• There will be potentially one of the biggest fights of this generation - a complete title unification match between Froch and Ward with ALL 5 titles on the line (WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF and The Ring).

That'd be a decent little earner at the box office.

Speaking of box office - in the early hours of the morning we seen Pacman getting knocked the eff out in the 6th round. What a superb toe to toe fight it was as well. Both boxers delivering champion performances with a brawl-like fight. It was the 3rd round which seen Pacquiao hit the canvas for the first time in 39 rounds of fights between them - then only 2 rounds later - Marquez was put on the deck by Manny. The two were exchanging blows throughout the contest - Manny threw more than Marquez, but it was credit to Marquez who had stated he'd be the cleverer boxer in this fight - It was in the 6th round, last second of the round in fact, that Marquez landed a counter disguised knockout blow to the head of Pacquiao. This shot had Manny out completely cold for a couple of minutes before coming around to announce his intentions in an interview with Larry Merchant about a potential 5th fight between the pair.

Doesn't look like a super fight between Floyd and Manny will take place now - but, even if it did - I'm sure it wouldn't struggle with getting figures though still. A fight between Floyd and Alvarez would surely be a bigger fight now - both undefeated, and potentially the only threat out there to Floyd at the moment. Floyd has announced 2 dates for next year that he'll be fighting - you can't not think that these 2 dates will be the last times he'll be in the ring as a pro boxer.