The Road Warrior Ready For April 12 Showdown

Former Roy Jones jr. and Antonio Tarver conqueror world ranked light heavyweight challenger “Road Warrior” Glen Johnson has signed to fight WBC light heavyweight champion “Bad” Chad Dawson on April 12th on Showtime Championship Boxing.Johnson (47-11-2, 32 KOs) defeated Hugo Pineda by eighth round TKO in the non-televised co-main event of Saturday's Showtime Championship Boxing event featuring IBF jr welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi making his first title defense over challenger Herman Ngoudjo. After his victory over Pineda, Johnson joined Showtime announcers Steve Albert and Al Bernstein at ringside during the telecast to officially announce his opportunity against Dawson.

This is what was on Johnson's mind:“I hope Chad Dawson is ready for a fight,” commented Johnson, a two-time world champion and former “Fighter of the Year” (2004). “I feel good, I feel fast, strong and youthful. There has been a lot made of how young and fast he is and that he is the future of the division. I am looking forward to showing everybody that I am a world champion. It is very important for me to show the people that I can beat the young star. It’ll show that the young stars are afraid to fight me.”

“I am ready and willing making a run at the championship." Johnson also stated that other light heavy weight's hear his name, suddenly get amnesia and forgets that he is in the division. He sated it best after his KO over Roy Jones, when asked, Do you think you are the best? He flat out stated: "I'm not the best, just willing to fight the best."

Malignaggi Gets The Nod

In a fight that went the distance Paulie Malignaggi, did just enough to edged out Herman Ngoudjo in defense of his IBF junior welterweight title. The fight was very close all the way through, as Malignaggi used a lightning quick jab and good ring generalship to off set the attack of Ngoudjo. I was not surprised to see that Ngoudjo was able to hurt Malignaggi on several different occasions landing the overhand right. Ngoudjo was not able to land his left hook or get his body attack going consistently enough to slow down the elusive Malignaggi. Malignaggi was seriously hurt by a huge right hand and almost looked as it was going to be a short night. The Brooklynite bit down on his mouth piece and fought back, it was just that he was not able to hurt Ngoudjo enough to get his respect that is one reason why Ngoudjo was stalking so aggressively.

The night's co-feature bout pitted former two-time light heavyweight world champion Glen Johnson taking on Colombian native Hugo Pineda. Johnson came out slugging from round one and delighted the crowd with his workmanlike effort. Continually banging away at the bigger southpaw, Johnson had his foe all bruised up and slowing down by round four of their scheduled ten round bout.

Johnson, looking to impress as an April 12th date with WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson is in the works, drove Pineda all around the ring and had the staggering back to his corner at the end of round 5. More brutal work by Johnson followed as the Florida resident pounded away to the head and body with both hands. Unbelievably Pineda lasted until late into the seventh round before the game fighter finally hit the canvas. Amazingly he survived the seventh but did not get out of the eight, as the 39 year old Johnson fought with a work rate much suited for a 20 year old.

Former IBF Jr. Welterweight Champion Lovemore N'duo opened the seven-bout fightcard with a dominating 7th round technical knockout win over Rafael Ortiz, out of Lebanon, Oregon.

N'duo, who lost his title to current belt holder Malignaggi in a one-sided boxing clinic (6/16/2007 UD 12), dropped the overmatched Ortiz with a left hook to the body, and referee David Fields waved off the mismatch at 2:14. N'duo, who has a contracted rematch set with Malignaggi and hopes that he would honor it.

Hopkins Wants Calzghe Now

In the past couple of months there has been so much said about a possible show down between Super Middle Weight King "The Pride of Whales" Joe Calzaghe and the Light heavy weight champion "Executioner" Bernard Hopkins. This was a fight that I actually doubted would be made, I just thought the two were flirting with each other throughout the media due to the fact that they were supposed to have met in 2003. When the two came face-to-face at the Floyd Mayweather and Ricky Hatton fight and started verbally assaulting one another, I knew that there was still a chance that the fight would not be made because Hopkins is known as a tough negotiator.

Hopkins who is never at a lose for words had this to say about his rival. “Calzaghe is cute,” Hopkins told BBC Radio 5 recently. “But he ain’t going to be cute after this facelift. If he steps out of his backyard, he will be handed his first defeat. I will beat Joe Calzaghe easily.”

“When I fight Joe Calzaghe, I’m fighting a champion. When Joe Calzaghe fights Bernard Hopkins, he’s fighting a legend. Joe Calzaghe never fought outside the UK (actually he’s fought in Denmark and Germany), he never fought in America. I’ve fought in Paris, I fought in Ecuador. Let’s see how he fights when he hasn’t got 40 to 50,000 of his own fans behind him. To me, a great champion can go anywhere in the world, out of his comfort zone and still deliver. I’m not convinced by him. America is not convinced. Let him leave his home town and try to invade the United States and beat Bernard Hopkins, a great champion, a legend.”

Calzaghe stated: “I understand what he’s doing,” Calzaghe says. “I’ve watched him do it before. He’s going to get in your face and try to intimidate you. But it ain’t gonna work with me. He tried his mind games but I took it and gave him a bit back. That’s what it’s all about and I’m buzzing. At the end of the day that’s the main reason I went over (to Las Vegas for Hatton – Mayweather) to try and make the Hopkins fight.” Calzaghe also stated that this was his last year in the sport. He plans on retiring undefeated and walking away unscathed.

DANA WHITE ADDRESSES STATE OF THE UFC

Every once in a while I will post another publishers content in it's entirety, when the post is a very good one.

Author:Ken Pishna

In his post-fight comments following UFC 79 on Dec. 29, Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White not only discussed the evening’s festivities, but spent a healthy portion of his time talking about the most aggressive year in the history of the promotion, as well as his plans for the future.

He stated that UFC 79 brought in a live gate of $4.9 million, which makes it the highest grossing mixed martial arts event of 2007 and the second highest grossing in the history of the sport, indicating that it was a strong finish to a very active year.

“We had a kick ass 2007. It was an aggressive year for us; buying Pride, the WEC, cover of Sports Illustrated, moving into Europe, and next year’s going to be even bigger,” said White.

“Every year we’ve taken this thing to another level, wait until you see what we do with 2008.”

One of the most broached subjects is always the expansion of the territories that the UFC operates in. White has already confirmed the promotion’s Canadian debut, which is slated to take place in Montreal in April. On Saturday night, he also stated that Germany is a target for 2008.

Looking even deeper into his crystal ball, he said, “The two places we're focusing on right now are New York and Mexico, so I'm hoping to be in both by 2009.” Though he said that a return to Brazil isn’t currently on the radar.

White has made no secret of the fact that he wants Georges St-Pierre to headline the first Canadian event. With the new interim welterweight champion coming out of his fight with Matt Hughes relatively unscathed, the only question now is regarding his opposition.

He couldn’t confirm it, but is seemingly hopeful that he’ll be able to pit St-Pierre in a unification bout against current champion Matt Serra, who is suffering from a recent back injury.

“Matt Serra is very confident that he will heal quickly. I think he feels he’ll be ready for April. That wouldn’t suck,” commented White with a grin on his face.

Addressing the numerous other entities that are making a run at promoting MMA events, he addressed one newcomer in particular, but remained supremely confident in his promotion’s position as the industry’s leader.

“This sport is like the ‘Wild, Wild West’ right now. The biggest guy (coming into the sport) right now is Mark Cuban. He’s got a lot of money and everyone is talking about what he’s going to do,” White expounded. “Floyd Mayweather is walking around with $70 million in his pocket and we all know how Floyd loves to spend money, so I’m sure Cuban is trying to get him to invest in it.

“I like it. The more money that comes into the sport the better it is to help grow the sport. More athletes get fights, make money, start their careers, and they’ll all end up in the UFC at the end of the day.”

But he doesn’t seem overly considered with the opposition. In contrast, he seems to fall into the old dictum of “the best defense is a strong offense” and focused his strategies on what his organization is doing to keep the juggernaut growing.

“There’s still a lot more work to do,” he said matter-of-factly. But aiming square on at rumors of a television deal with CBS, White stated, “Could be. We're always out to get more exposure … Not necessarily broadcast television, but we need to get more exposure.

“In the next few weeks we’re going to be making some announcements that are going to shake up the entire industry again.”

In the end though, he is confident in the direction the UFC is headed and doesn’t seem overly concerned with major corporate sponsors being slow to climb aboard (Harley-Davidson, however, was center mat for UFC 79) or the recent derailment of a TV deal with HBO.

“It's taken longer than I'd hoped after the whole Spike thing started going well, but the bottom line is, we're not going to cut a deal that doesn't make sense,” declared the defiant UFC president. “I don't care who the deal is with. We did this whole thing on our own. Nobody helped us. Nobody was running up trying to finance us ... so it's going to be done on our terms.”

World MMA Rankings

Here is a list of the World Rankings in MMA. These are not much different from my own, some how my rankings are not industry standard so here they go. When ranking a fighter they take into consideration a fighter's performance in addition to his win-loss record, head-to-head and common opponents, difficulty of opponents, and numerous other factors in what is the most comprehensive rankings system in the sport. In MMA a fighter who is suspended due to failing a pre-fight or post fight urinalysis is not considered for this list.

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (over 205 pounds)
#1 Heavyweight Fighter in the World: Fedor Emelianenko

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (205-pound limit)
#1 Light Heavyweight Fighter in the World: Quinton Jackson

MIDDLEWEIGHT DIVISION (185-pound limit)(EliteXC MIDDLEWEIGHT Division is 160 pounds)
#1 Middleweight Fighter in the World: Anderson Silva

WELTERWEIGHT DIVISION (170-pound limit)
#1 Welterweight Fighter in the World: Matt Serra

LIGHTWEIGHT DIVISION (160-pound limit)
#1 Lightweight Fighter in the World: Takanori Gomi

FEATHERWEIGHT DIVISION (145 pounds and under)
#1 Featherweight Fighter in the World: Akitoshi Tamura

With the ever increasing popularity of MMA, it's just a matter of time before we see more divisions added and multiple titles added to a division.

Malignaggi Has Some Words!

So as I stated yesterday that both guys have a genuine dislike for one another, then again Paulie Malignaggi can make anybody dislike him fast if that is his intention to do so. Malignaggi is a brilliant self promoter much like Prince Naseem Hamed, he fights in a similar fashion with the exception of knockout power. This same mastery of the English vocabulary mixed with charisma got him into his title shot, when Cotto was looking elsewhere. Paulie easily gets to his opponents due to the fact that every one see that skinny frame and a mouth that never stops running and wants to shut him up, the problem is that most can't keep up with his speed and agility. Here is what Malignaggi had to say about his opponent Herman Ngoudjo:

“Don’t worry about remembering my opponent’s name, because, no one will remember him anymore. I plan on punishing Ngoudjo and I will break him down for talking so much crap. If I win by knockout, it will be in the later rounds.I’m a gangster. I don’t worry about my opponents, but my opponents need to worry about me".
“I want to fight three or four times in this year. And I’m not talking about tomato cans, I want to have breakthrough fights.
Ngoudjo talked about taking the belt away. He will be going home empty handed.

Paulie is very focused and serious about this fight,although it may be hard to tell from his demeanor. One thing that you can say is this guy has a lot of heart and balls for all of the things that come out of his mouth. We will see Saturday if his mouth has wrote a check that his ass can't cash in his first IBF title defense

Malignaggi and Ngoudjo Jaw Off

So they state that they generally dislike one another. With both boxers claiming disrespect from the other, the two get the chance to settle their differences in the ring on January 5th, in 2008's first world title fight, will this live up to a Cotto-Mosley, Mayweather-De la Hoya or Mayweather-Hatton. I doubt that it would pull off some adequate amount of revenue from live gate that compare to any of the other mega fights last year. I do believe however,that this is going to be a good entertaining fight.

Here is Herman "the Black panther" Ngoudjo side of when asked of the dislike for each other:Oh, Malignaggi talks shit, that's all it is. I've told him, I am going to punish him. He disrespected me very badly and he said I am nothing. I am going to make him cry for what he has said to me. I know in my stomach I will win the fight.

Ngoudjo insist that he will stay at 140 and makes the weight easily, he has also desired to fight Ricky Hatton assuming Hatton does not take a long lay off. His prediction for the fight was that he will win and see if Malignaggi can take his punch.