Making the cardinal mistake of trying to punch with a puncher, formerly unbeaten lightweight Amir Khan (18-0, 14 KOs) was knocked down twice and stopped by Colombian Breidis Prescott (20-0, 18 KOs) in the 1st round on Saturday night. Khan, 21, went right after Prescott, seeming to ignore the latest advice by most boxing experts to stay away from the powerful Prescott, in the 1st round and was almost immediately dropped when the Colombian nailed Khan with a big left hook that stunned Khan, causing both legs to go, and then he was put down with a right and then another left hook to the head.

Khan was on queer street once he hit the canvas. It would have taken a minor miracle for him to have survived the round at this point. He got up, barely, looking as if he had been in a car wreck. Rather than looking at the referee, Khan’s head pivoted around like it was made from rubber and he seemed not to be in the right of mind. After examining Khan for a second, the referee allowed him to continue fighting what seemed like an almost certain knockout fate awaiting him. Prescott, a fighter that few people have heard of before this fight, just had too much power in his left hook for Khan. His right wasn’t all that much of a threat from what I could see of it, but his left was a dangerous weapon to be sure. Khan came right after Prescott as soon as the action resumed, almost as if the fight were being restarted. Normally a hurt fighter wants to clinch and try to buy time. Not Khan, though, he went after Prescott as if he were the one hurt, and started winging shots with both hands wildly, missing and leaving himself open for Prescott’s vicious left hook.

By Michael Lieberman: I don’t mean to gloat or anything but I knew this way going to happen. In fact, I predicted that the Colombian knockout artist Breidis Prescott (20-0, 18 KOs) would knock Amir Khan (18-0, 14 KOs) as soon as the fight was signed months ago. I just didn’t think it would be so gosh darned quick with the fighting being stopped in the 1st round. I guess that goes to show you that if a fighter has a glass chin, you got to protect them fighters like the hard-punching Prescott. Khan, 21, didn’t look good even as he was entering the ring. He looked nervous, as if he had gotten himself into something that he was ill prepared for.

You can say that again. Prescott was in a whole different class than Khan, which became abundantly class in the opening seconds of the bout when Prescott staggered Khan with a simple left jab. After getting hit, Khan’s legs turned rubbery for a second and I thought he was about to do chicken dance. 

By Erik Schmidt: Making his first appearance since losing his World Boxing Council heavyweight title to Samuel Peter in a 6th round stoppage in March, Oleg Maskaev (35-6, 26 KOs) filled Red Square with fans in Moscow, Russia, who came to watch Maskaev win a dull 10-round unanimous decision over journeyman fighter Robert Hawkins (23-12, 7 KOs) on Saturday night. With a combined age of 77 between the two fighters, they both fought as if they were well over-the-hill, with each missing most of them missing often throughout the fight. Maskaev, now 39, landed in the single digits in many of the rounds, and missed an enormous amount of shots each round.

His hand speed, never good to begin with, appeared to have gotten worse since I last saw him fight a year ago. His reflexes and timing looked way off, as if he hadn’t sparred enough while training for the fight. I can’t say I’ve seen him ever this badly off in timing before, and I’m not sure if it was his advanced age or just a case of having an off night. Whatever the case, he was missing over and over again with his shots during the entire fight, and looking painfully slow in the process. 

By Chris Williams: Former Olympic Gold Medalist Audley Harrison (23-3, 17 KOs) defeated Brazilian heavyweight George Arias (41-11, 29 KOs) by a 10-round decision on Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena, Manchester, in Lancashire, United Kingdom. The final scores were 98-94. Although much of the media has criticized the 36 year-old Harrison’s performance, calling it a lackluster win, I beg to disagree with them. Harrison looked impressive against a fighter with a sturdy chin and a style that wasn’t suited to make Harrison look his best.

Other than the 4th, 5th and 9th rounds, in which Harrison took the rounds off to rest a little, he easily dominated the rest of the action with his probing jab, right hook, and left uppercut. Aries, though, a smallish heavyweight at 5′11″, fought hard and gave a good effort of himself. However, he wasn’t nearly in the same class as the former Olympian and never put him in any kind of trouble. If Harrison can be blamed for a pedestrian performance, it’s only because his opponent was so far out of his league. Harrison was able to fight at half speed much of the time and still dominate Aries. 

By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated Colombian bantamweight prospect Yonnhy Perez (18-0, 13 KOs) was too much for his replacement opponent David Martinez (8-5-1, 3 KOs), stopping him in the 6th round of a scheduled 10-round bout on Friday night at the Buffalo Bill’s Star Arena, in Primm, Nevada. Perez, 29, an amateur standout from Colombia with 230 amateur wins, had far too much fire power for the weaker, but game, Martinez. Perez, the much stronger puncher, savagely beat Martinez in every round until the fight was mercifully stopped by referee Joe Cortez at 2:41 of the 6th round after Perez landed a three punch combination to the head of Martinez, who didn’t even try to block the powerful shots.

Referee Cortez had warned Martinez at the end of the 4th round, telling that he needed to start punching back otherwise the fight would be stopped. In something I’ve rarely seen happen before, Martinez apologized to Cortez. This seemed to pacify him for awhile allowing the fight to continue until the 6th, when it became painfully obvious that the fight needed to be stopped because Martinez was taking a terrible beating by Perez. Indeed, the fight should have been stopped in the 5th round, even though Martinez responded well to Cortez’s warning and fought his heart out. However, Martinez only succeeded in taking even more punishment that he had in the earlier rounds, because he constantly pressed forward in the 5th, walking into a great many big shots thrown by Perez. Martinez tried, though, landing decent number of shots, but he had no real power to speak of, and it had almost zero effect on Perez. In the meantime, Martinez’s face was red, swollen and looked as if he had taken far too many head shots from the hard-hitting Perez.

Posted September 6th, 2008

By Aaron Klein: With only one fight under his belt as a heavyweight, it seems as if former cruiserweight champion David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) is already even more popular than IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (51-3, 45 KOs), who has been off and on a title holder in the division since April 2000. Although some boxing fans may dispute this, just take a look at the articles in the media about Haye, and then take a look for any articles on Wladimir. Unless I miss my guess, you’d lucky to find one article on Wladimir, whereas Haye would have near countless articles on him and his career.

It seems more than a little strange that Wladimir, who has been considered by many to be the top heavyweight in the division for the past two years, isn’t mentioned nearly as often as Haye is in the media. This isn’t localized to just the articles in the media, it’s also repeated in the various boxing forums on the net. Haye is almost always mentioned much more than Wladimir. This seems to suggest that Wladimir isn’t being marketed correctly by his PR team, hence he needs to consider replacing them, or he’s not doing nearly as good a job marketing himself as Haye has done in the past few months. Who knows? Maybe it doesn’t matter to Wladimir, who is already wealthy from the past eight years in which he has been one of the top heavyweights in the division. With his promotional company K2, Wladimir has done well for himself and will likely continue to do so once his career is over with. However, he seems to have been surpassed by Haye as the most interesting heavyweight in the division, and also appears to be already surpassed too by Samuel Peter.

By Jim Dower: It’s hard to believe that Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) was once considered by many boxing fans to be the top fighter in all of the sport. That all seemed to change after his 10th round stoppage loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in December 2007. It seemed like a bad choice for Hatton to make by choosing to fight the bigger Mayweather, who fought a division above Hatton at welterweight and had a significant size advantage over him going into the bout. As most people suspected, the size disparity was too much for Hatton and he eventually lost after giving a good accounting of himself in the first six rounds of the bout.

Unfortunately, the American style of fighting, which sometimes doesn’t allow for as much infighting as in Europe, prevented Hatton from fighting in his usual style on the inside. It didn’t matter to the fans that Hatton was partially handicapped by not able to fight in close, he was considered the loser. But, along with the loss to Mayweather, Hatton also seemed to lose his status as one of the top pound for pound fighters in boxing. He was never considered to truly a top number #1 fighter, because that rested with Mayweather. However, now that Floyd is out of the sport, possibly for good, it leaves a hole for Hatton to move into the number #1 slot. For him to do that, though, he needs to fight at least three to four good fighters so that he can erase the perception of his earlier defeat to Mayweather. Already, Hatton has chosen wisely by selecting Paulie Malignaggi, the International Boxing Federation light welterweight champion, as his next opponent on November 22nd in Las Vegas. Malignaggi is a popular fighter in the East Coast, and has great boxing skills, and is the type of fighter that will give Hatton a tremendous boost in the minds of fans if he can win impressively. Besides Malignaggi, Hatton needs to look towards fighting Manny Pacquiao next. By then, Pacquiao will probably have lost to Oscar De La Hoya, whom he faces in December, but a loss over the much larger De La Hoya won’t dampen Pacquiao’s appeal any.

By Nate Anderson: Unbeaten lightweight contender Amir Khan (18-0, 14 KOs) will be facing yet another badly over-matched opponent on Saturday, this one undefeated Colombian Breidis Prescott (19-0, 17 KOs), whose record is badly over-inflated with wins over mainly lower quality fighters with losing records. However, he does still have the ‘o’ on his record, as well as a high percentage of knockouts, which is probably the only reason he was chosen to face Khan. However, Khan has already faced much better competition than this guy, notably Michael Gomez, Martin Kristjansen and Gairy St. Clair, so you can expect an early night for Khan with an easy knockout win.

Prescott, 25, is a threat to Khan, but only if he can catch him coming inside trying to throw body shots. Minus that, then this should be an easy fight because Prescott has very slow hand speed and he moves around the ring as if his feet were partially mired in mud. Even his power isn’t what it appears. Prescott punches hard, but is more of a clubbing-type puncher than a one-punch knockout artist. Indeed, if not for the mostly lower quality fighters on his record, I imagine that his knockout record would be much lower than it is. In fact, I consider Khan to be the harder puncher of the two by a slight margin. Prescott’s power is good, but he’s very erratic with his punches and has a difficult time trying to find his mark. Against Richard Abril, Prescott’s last opponent, he had a lot of problems trying to land his slower punches against the speedy former Cuban amateur star. After struggling with Prescott early in the fight, he began circling the ring, jabbing and giving Prescott all kinds of problems until the last two rounds when Prescott came back to narrowly win the rounds due to his pressure.

Though Prescott won the fight, it ended up a 10-round split decision and he didn’t look good in winning. This is why it seems interesting that he would be chosen as an opponent for Khan, considering that it was a disappointing performance by Prescott, not a good one. I guess it doesn’t matter, though, because most boxing fans failed to see the fight and had little to go by when Prescott’s name was announced as an opponent for Khan.

For Khan’s part, he badly needs to work on his defense. He was knocked down in his last fight against Gomez, as well as against Willie Limond in July 2007. With this in mind, it’s probably the reason why Khan recently opted to get a new trainer in Jorge Rubio, a former trainer for the Cuban National boxing team, and someone that specializes in teaching defensive techniques. However, Khan has only been training with him for a short while and may still not have absorbed enough for it to help him in this Saturday’s fight with Prescott.

He probably won’t need it, like I said, because Prescott other than his inflated record, is a pretty limited fighter from what I’ve seen of him. Even with Khan’s wild charging attacks, which have always looked rather amateurish to me, he’ll still likely be able to take Prescott out in short order. Although I wouldn’t recommend for Khan to go rushing in at him, because he does after all hit harder than any fighter that Khan has yet faced, and it would be a very easy thing for him to land one of his huge hooks and put Khan down on his duff once again.

Prescott has enough power that it he can hurt Khan with something, there’s a very good chance he’ll be able to finish, unlike the other two fighters that have put Khan down in his career. Expect to see to Khan mostly jabbing and circling the ring, making Prescott look bad. After a few rounds of this, I see Khan opening up on his with a flurry of shots and taking the Colombian out.

By Nate Anderson: Heavyweight Audley Harrison (22-3, 17 KOs) continues his comeback against last minute replacement Brazilian George Arias (41-10, 29 KOs) on Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Lancashire. Harrison needs to not only defeat Arias, but also do it in an impressive manner to try and regain his appeal with the British boxing fans, many of whom have long ago grown tired of Harrison after watching him fight mainly third tier fighters at the start of his career, and then fail several times when he finally stepped it up against quality opposition.

With help from promoter Frank Warren, Harrison may be able to still resurrect his career and line up a future title shot if he can keep winning. That, however, is easier said than done for Harrison, who has been terribly inconsistent since 2005, winning three and losing three - not exactly the type of record that gives on hope that he’ll see much improvement in the future. Audley, though, says he is continuing to improve and learn lessons from his past mistakes. He may not get too many more chances should he mess it up this time. Arias, 34, doesn’t have the skills to compete with a fight in Audley’s class, and it will likely end early with Harrison winning by a stoppage. Once Harrison get’s past Aries into fighters with better boxing skills and power, like Samuel Peter or Vitali Klitschko, is when Harrison may start showing his defensive flaws in his game.

By Manuel Perez: Previously unbeaten lightweights Juan Diaz (33-1, 17 KOs) and knockout artist Michael Katsidis (23-1, 20 KOs) meet up in a do or die bout this Saturday night at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. The bout matches to vastly different fighters against one another, with Katsidis, 28, a slugger with tremendous power and a defense which is pretty much nonexistent, and Diaz, 24, a high volume puncher with average power that normally relies on his nonstop punching ability and superb stamina to win his fights.

Of the two, Katsidis is the less skilled fighter by far, and the most vulnerable, having been hurt badly in wars with Czar Amonsot and Graham Earl in 2007. In both fights, Katsidis was hurt and came close to losing both of them. His tremendous punching power, however, saved him on both occasions letting him stay in the fight against Amonsot despite receiving terrible cuts around both eyes and then bailing him out against Early by allowing him to stop him in the 5th round. Katsidis luck finally ran out in his last fight against Joel Casamayor, who stopped him in the 10th round in March.

By Aaron Klein: Contrary to reports about British heavyweight David Haye (21-0, 20 KOs) not having any fighters willing to fight him for his upcoming but on October 11th, former IBF/WBC heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman (45-6-2, 36 KOs) is reportedly very interested in fighting Haye, according to comments made by Rahman’s manager Steve Nelson to fightnews. Nelson recently fired back a rebuttal to Haye, who said that no one wants to fight him, remarking that Rahman does want to fight Haye, and that the two have been working on a deal for some months now, although no offers have been made by Haye’s people, according to the article by Bob Caico of fightnews.

This is interesting boxing news, because it seems to contradict the complaints made by Haye. If this turns out to be true, it would seem rather peculiar for Haye to say that there is no one willing to fight him, making one wonder why he would utter something like this unless he had an ulterior motive. Rahman, now 35, probably isn’t nearly the same fighter he was years ago when he shocked then heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis by knocking him out in the 4th in November 2001 to win the heavyweight titles, but Rahman still can punch with just about as much power as he did then. 

By Eric Thomas: After seeing clips of today’s press conference with former World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko (35-2, 34 KOs) and current WBC champion Samuel Peter (30-1, 23 KOs), it appears that Vitali was won the war of nerves having already psyched the Nigerian champion out. The two fighters will be fighting on October 11th at the O2 World arena in Berlin, Germany. Klitschko, 37, the champion emeritus, has been out of the ring four years after retiring due to a compilation of injuries that occurred while training for a bout with Hasim Rahman in 2004.

Though four years is a long time for most fighters that have been away from the ring, Vitali looks virtually the same aside from a few sprinkles of gray hair here and there. He also hasn’t lost his confidence, which was on full display on Thursday when he told the timid-looking Peter, who wore sunglasses inside the conference hall, “You look a bit nervous because you go to press conference with big body guards…Don’t worry, we will not fight before the fight. I won’t attack you.” Not much for words, Peter had no comeback, and merely sat in his chair looking both nervous and embarrassed. However, Peter is usually uncomfortable at press conferences, no matter whom he’s fighting.Indeed, leading up to his two fights with James Toney, a fighter he twice defeated, Peter looked shy and ill at ease at the press conferences whether he be speaking or just sitting listening to others speak. His shyness didn’t seem to affect his performances, for once he was in the ring on fight night, he was like an enraged bull, going after Toney and trying to take him out with huge looping punches.

By  For most people who witnessed former World Boxing Association welterweight champion Miguel Cotto’s (32-1, 26 KOs) 11th round stoppage defeat to Antonio Margarito on July 26th in Las Vegas, Nevada, they saw Cotto take a terrible beating ending with him twice taking a knee in the 11th round in order to prevent himself from being beaten even worse than he was. Though some boxing fans seem to suggest that it wasn’t that bad of a beating, that Cotto was just bathed in blood from two cuts around his eyes including a bloody nose, but I beg to differ; Cotto was broken by Margarito mentally as well as physically, the type of way that tends to stick with a fighter for the remainder of his days.

Many a fighter has never been the same after taking a savage beating like the one that Cotto took. But, then again, there are fighters that rebound quickly after a fight like this, showing almost no affects from the fight. One would hope that Cotto is of the latter type, because if he still is feeling the effects of his fight with Margarito, then it will be quickly brought to forefront as soon as he takes on another live body. It would be wise for Cotto to take thing slowly for awhile to check out what he has left of his motor skills after all the head shots he took, and also to enable him to rebuild his shattered self confidence.

By Scott Gilfoid: Former World Boxing Council light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson (27-0, 17 KOs) will take on IBF light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (27-4, 19 KOs) on October 11th, at the Palms Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tarver, now 39, is coming off an impressive 12-round unanimous decision over Clinton Woods in April to win the title. However, this will be the biggest test for Tarver since facing Bernard Hopkins in June 2006.

Tarver was soundly beaten by Hopkins, losing by a one-sided 12-round decision. Tarver, though, remains upbeat and confident about his chances against Dawson, saying “As soon as I land a punch, it is going to be over.” By listening to Tarver, it seems as if he’s thinking in terms of his shocking one-punch 2nd round knockout of Roy Jones Jr. in May 2004. In the case of Dawson, 26, also a southpaw, Tarver will be facing not only a younger fighter, but also one that is faster and punches from the same side as him. If Tarver hopes to win the fight, he’s going to have to do it in the later rounds, because Dawson often is at his best for the first six to eight rounds of his fight, and is almost unbeatable during that time frame. Tarver is going to have to take hint from Glen Johnson’s performance against Dawson, in which Johnson was able to apply a lot of pressure against Dawson in the second half of the fight and make the fight very close. Tarver, however, isn’t much of a pressure fighter, instead choosing to box from the outside where he mostly pecks away with his long jab and straight left hand. In this case, he won’t have the height advantage that he normally does, as Dawson is an inch and half taller than Tarver at 6′3 1/2″, making this a difficult fight for the older Tarver.

Tarver had been hoping that Joe Calzaghe, who recently defeated Hopkins, might look his way for a bout. Unfortunately, Calzaghe opted for the lesser threat by choosing to fight Roy Jones Jr. For his part, Dawson decided to give up his World Boxing Council light heavyweight title rather than have to travel to Romania to fight Romanian Adrian Diaconu. It was a wise decision by Dawson, since he would have made less money for a fight that would have been tough for him considering that Diaconu would be the hometown fighter and would likely have the benefit of the doubt by the judges if the fight were in any way close.

Both Tarver and Dawson have a common opponent in Glen Johnson, whom Tarver lost to in 2004, but then avenged his defeat with a close 12-round unanimous decision a year later in 2005. Perhaps getting his memory a little confused about the second fight with Johnson, Tarver had this to say about the fight, “Dawson had to step up and fight for life or death against Glen Johnson. I ran over Glen Johnson.”

By William Mackay: In a move that I think is utter waste of time, Ricky Hatton (44-1, 31 KOs) has taken on Floyd Mayweather Sr. as his new trainer, this after parting ways with his long-time trainer, Billy Graham shortly after Hatton’s rough time against Juan Lazcano in May. Mayweather Sr., the father of Floyd Mayweather Jr. who badly schooled Hatton last December before stopping him in the 10th round, is a trainer known for teaching defensive boxing skills to fighters. In some cases, like Oscar De La Hoya, the teachings don’t always appear to take, since he looks for the most part the same fighter he’s always looked before taking on Mayweather Sr.

Perhaps Mayweather Sr’s best pupil is Joan Guzman, a number #1 rated lightweight in the World Boxing Organization, and who looked like a Mayweather Jr. clone with his excellent boxing skills, especially in terms of his outstanding defensive. The fact that Hatton has decided to take on Mayweather Sr. at this late stage in the 29 year-old Hatton’s career seems to strike one as a move made out of desperation rather than just a basic need. Read more

By Chris Williams: With little experience under his belt in the heavyweight division other than a 1st round stoppage of Tomasz Bonin a year ago in April, former cruiserweight champion David Haye (21-1, 20 KOs) appears to be using other fighters’ names in order to gain attention to himself and thereby raise his own status as a fighter. It’s a tried and true method used by a large number of fighters throughout boxing. However, few have been close to as successful s Haye has been, for he’s not only apparently talked himself into an inflated number #3 ranking in the World Boxing Organization and #5 ranking in the WBC, he’s done it all without beating one top 15 opponent.

At the same time, he’s criticized IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko so often that now the Ukrainian fighter is talking about fighting Haye in 2009. However, the name dropping has had an effect on many boxing fans, with many of them now sick of Haye’s act, wishing he would just shut his pie hole and finally fight someone or a change. He’s so far ruled out a high number of potential opponents for his next fight on November 11th, many of them excellent fighters like Alexander Dimitrenko, James Toney and Monte Barrett. However, Haye really needs to pipe down with all his constant chatter, and get on with proving he’s a real threat, deserving of his high ranking in the heavyweight division before criticizing other more established heavyweights.It’s one thing for a top heavyweight that’s proven himself to say derogatory things about other heavyweights in the division, but when you have a fighter that has been fighting exclusively smaller fighters his entire career insulting heavyweights as if he’s already established himself, it seem peculiar. I have no doubt that Haye can probably beat many of the heavyweights in the top 15 with his power alone, but until he actually proves it, he needs to keep quiet. While I think he can beat a great many fighters in the division, I think there too that there are a handful that he will never able to beat because of his weak chin, poor stamina and wild attacking style fighting.

By Erik Schmidt: After jumping off to an impressive 14-0 start, former Cuban amateur standout Yoan Pablo Hernandez (16-1, 10 KOs) has looked less than impressive in his last three starts, losing one of them by Wayne Braithwaite by a disappointing 3rd round TKO in March, and then once again looking less awe inspiring in his recent fight last Saturday night, a 5th round TKO over 35 year-old Santiago De Paula (10-8-1, 10 KOs) in Berlin, Germany.

Hernandez, still ranked high at #15 in the World Boxing Association and IBF cruiserweight division, knocked De Paula down three times in the fight round alone, yet wasn’t able to put him away. This was the same problem that Hernandez has in his fight with Braithwaite, whom he knocked down once in the first round and staggered badly a later on, and then let him off the hook by fighting much too relaxed. 

Posted September 3rd, 2008 

By Jim Dower: Last Saturday night, World Boxing Organization light flyweight champion Ivan Calderon (32-0, 6 KOs) once again defeated knockout artist Hugo Fidel Cazares (26-5-1, 19 KOs), this time by a 7th round technical decision after Calderon, 33, received a deep cut on the center of his forehead after clashing heads with Cazares. The fight was officially stopped at 1:58 of the seventh, with blood gushing from the cut on Calderon’s forehead, making it unlikely that they could stop the flow of blood if the fight were to have been allowed to continue. The bout then went to the scorecards, with Calderon winning by the scores of 67-66, 68-65 and 68-65.

I had Calderon winning every round except for the 6th. However, afterwards Calderon, obviously not satisfied with the manner in which the fight ended, spoke of a third match between him and Cazares as if this fight was tainted somehow. That’s admirable of Calderon to do this, because most boxers wouldn’t be willing to give an opponent a second shot, especially if the fight was in anyway close. This fight wasn’t close, though, as Calderon appeared to have dominated 90% if the fight up until the time of the stoppage, and it didn’t appear to be any question in most people’s minds whom the better fighter was between Calderon and Cazares, at least not from what I saw of the fight. A third fight, however, isn’t needed and in fact would be little more than what we’ve seen so far from the two fighters. Cazares, 30, is a fine fighter, and has extraordinary power in both hands, but let’s face it: he’s too slow and limited to catch up to the quicker Calderon. He may be able to land an occasional punch when pressing really hard like in the 6th and 7th rounds last Saturday night, but mostly he was just missing his shots and looking outclassed by Calderon.

By Aaron Klein: Two-time champion John Ruiz (43-8-1, 29 KOs) said that we would be seeing the new Ruiz, one that no longer clinched constantly like earlier in his career. However, after watching Ruiz lose a 12-round unanimous decision to former World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev (49-1, 34 , in a bout which seemed to include at least one clinch after every punch landed, I can’t see much that changed of the 36 year-old Ruiz’s style of fighting. It was just as dull, if not more so, that it had always been for most of his long boxing career.

In the end, Ruiz didn’t have the energy, style or power to give the 7′0″ 320 pound Valuev much of a fight. Forget about the ridiculous -114-113, 116-113 and 116-111 - scores that were handed down by the judges. The fight was terribly one-sided with Valuev, 35, winning almost every round of the fight with ease. However, now that it’s over one has to ask what will come of Ruiz?