Bad Left Hook - Bringing You Pound-for-Pound the Best in Boxing Coverage

More great SB Nation Blogs

Ring Magazine Champions

Accept nothing less! These are boxing's true CHAMPIONS -- anyone not listed here that claims to be a champion of a division is a titleholder.

Heavyweight
Wladimir Klitschko

Cruiserweight (200)
Tomasz Adamek

Light Heavyweight (175)
Vacant

Super Middleweight (168)
Vacant

Middleweight (160)
Kelly Pavlik

Junior Middleweight (154)
Vacant

Welterweight (147)
Vacant

Junior Welterweight (140)
Manny Pacquiao

Lightweight (135)
Juan Manuel Marquez

Junior Lightweight (130)
Vacant

Featherweight (126)
Vacant

Junior Featherweight (122)
Vacant

Bantamweight (118)
Vacant

Junior Bantamweight (115)
Vacant

Flyweight (112)
Vacant

Junior Flyweight (108)
Ivan Calderon

Strawweight (105)
Vacant

Rendall Munroe outpoints Simone Maludrottu to retain European 122-pound title

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 6:46 PM EST in Post-Fight Analysis Comment 0 comments

European junior featherweight titleholder Rendall Munroe overcame something of a slow start to outpoint Italian challenger Simone Maludrottu in a terrific fight today in Nottingham. Munroe won on scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 115-113. Bad Left Hook scored the fight a 114-114 draw.

Munroe's victory not only allows him to retain his title, but gives him the right to a shot at WBC titlist Toshiaki Nishioka. After the fight, Munroe said he was ready for the title shot immediately. The 29-year-old bin man by day from Leicester would be a pretty wide underdog against Nishioka, who has not lost a fight since 2004.

Munroe (20-1, 8 KO) used relentless pressure and his size and in-ring weight advantage to pull out the victory. Neither man was particularly accurate, but both threw tons of punches and showed no stamina issues. Munroe turned the fight around after six rounds, after which I had him trailing 58-56.

It was then that he began constantly pressing Maludrottu (30-3, 11 KO) into the ropes, throwing punches in bunches, and getting rises out of the Nottingham crowd. It was the strategy he would use for the rest of the fight, and what gave him the win.

Maludrottu, 31, used effective activity and some nice counter-punching to stay in the fight, but he had a rough spell between the 8th and 10th rounds especially. In the final two rounds, I felt he came back fairly strong to tie things up at six rounds apiece, but he fell short of that on the official cards.

Maludrotto and Munroe both put all they had into what turned out to be a highly entertaining affair. There were almost no clinches, even though they fought the majority of the bout with their shoulders pressed into one another. The pace was brisk starting in the latter half of the first round, and neither used jabs effectively at all. Munroe targeted the body, while Maludrottu tried to work upstairs on Munroe.

Munroe might well do everything he can to get the Nishioka fight first, but he could really stand to take something else first, I think. He's a really likable guy and certainly came to fight today, and he showed an ability to adjust mid-fight that wound up making the difference. But Nishioka is on a different level than Maludrottu. Maludrottu showed no snap on his punches, only once rocking Munroe's head back noticeably. Nishioka would have capitalized on some of those times that Munroe left himself wide open tonight, because Maludrottu actually did capitalize on them, he just wasn't a strong enough puncher to make anything happen.

All in all, though, the focus should be on a terrific effort from both. They put on a hell of a show, and this will be a contender for Fight of the Month.

0 comments | 0 recs | Share

Kessler-Ward Weigh-In Live at 5pm ET

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 2:04 PM EST in Features Comment 35 comments

6:23 PM Update: Kessler weighed in at 167 pounds, and Ward at 166 1/2. Both looked to be in good shape. Waldo will have more from the weigh-in later.

Where's Waldo? He's in Oakland. Waldo Rastel (better known to many of you as waldo47) is on the scene today for the official weigh-in for tomorrow night's Super Six tournament fight between WBA super middleweight titlist Mikkel Kessler and unbeaten American and former Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward.

Waldo covered the press conference a couple of days ago, and will have live updates again today in the comments section of this post, including the weights as they come in. The whole shebang is scheduled to start at 2pm local time in California, so 5pm ET. No word on whether or not there will be another high school cheerleading performance.

Don't forget that Bad Left Hook will also have live, round-by-round coverage and scoring tomorrow night starting at 10pm ET.

35 comments | 0 recs | Share

Bad Left Hook Live Boxing Results and Commentary: Rendall Munroe v. Simone Maludrottu

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 1:30 PM EST in Round-by-Round Comment 44 comments

For an in-depth preview of this European junior featherweight title fight, check out our friends at The Boxing Bulletin.

Our live coverage will start at 4:30pm ET with round-by-round in the comments of this post, and real time analysis. If you have an SBN account, you won't need to refresh at all.

RENDALL MUNROE		SIMONE MALUDROTTU
	Main Event

Record:	19-1 (8 KO)	Record:	30-2 (11 KO)
Age:	29	Age:	31
Hometown:	Leicester, England	Hometown:	Olbia, Italy
Height:	5'7"	Height:	5'5"
Reach:	68"	Reach:	66"
Ranks/Titles:	European Junior Featherweight, #12 BoxRec	Ranks/Titles:	#27 BoxRec
TV:	Sky Sports, 4:30pm ET	Venue:	Harvey Hadden Leisure Centre - Nottingham, England

44 comments | 0 recs | Share

Why Pacquiao-Mayweather needs to be in Vegas

by Brickhaus on Nov 20, 2009 12:44 PM EST in Features Comment 14 comments

Lately, there's been a lot of noise that Bob Arum is putting out feelers to have a Pacquiao-Mayweather superfight in a location other than Las Vegas. He's already spoken to Jerry Jones about using the Dallas Cowboys' stadium. There have been some quieter rumors about looking at Wembley Stadium in the UK. But at the end of the day, the fight needs to be in Vegas, and it has nothing to do with the fight atmosphere.

Mayweather and Pacquiao are both in it for the money

Heck, Mayweather even goes by the name "Money" these days. Pacquaio often comes across as being a bit more altruistic, but he cares about the dollars as well. He threatened to put the kabosh on his fight with Ricky Hatton until Hatton agreed to a 50/50 split of UK revenues. And whoever promotes the fight, the promoter surely stands more to gain by having the fight in the most profitable location rather than the most significant location. To figure out where the fight would be held, you need to follow the green brick road.

You can charge exorbitant ticket prices in Vegas

One great thing about the Nevada State Athletic Commission is that they actually publish all of their live gates, so you know how much a fight has made just off the ticket sales. The all-time high live gate was Mayweather-De La Hoya, which brought in over $18 million in ticket sales. Mayweather-Hatton brought in over $10 million. Pacquiao-Hatton and Pacquiao-Cotto both brought in about $8 million. This means that Mayweather-De La Hoya was able to average over $1,000 per ticket. Even the lowest of these, Pacquiao-Hatton, averaged about $575 per ticket. Figure that a megafight of this magnitude would be somewhere in the middle, but probably closer to the record. Splitting the baby, which I think is conservative, they would be able to sell 17,000 tickets at about $800 a pop. That brings in $13.6 million in live gate alone. Nowhere else in the world is there enough money just waiting to be spent that you can average a ticket price that high.

The casinos are willing to pay...

For the biggest fights, casinos are willing to pay massive site fees in order to retain a fight. If you have a huge fight, tons of people (not just the people buying tickets) end up in the casino, and at the end of the day, the house wins more money than it spends from the extra gamblers. Mayweather-Hoya was rumored to have a site fee in the $15 - $20 million range, although no official number was released. Mayweather-Hatton had a $7 million site fee. Even a dud like Hopkins-Calzaghe got an $8 million site fee from Planet Hollywood. Conservatively, the site fee for a fight this big should be around $10 million, and it could be much larger than that. That brings revenues from holding the fight in Vegas up to around $23.6 million, and possibly as high as around $35 million.

...and others aren't

Once upon a time, there were mysterious benefactors who wanted to pay for the biggest fights in order to bring publicity to their countries. To host the Rumble in the Jungle, President Mobutu paid Don King a site fee of $10 million (about $35 million in 2009 dollars). I just can't think of any benefactor who would be willing to come up with that kind of coin to have the fight hosted in their hometown. Bob Arum's been talking for years about having a big fight in Dubai, but it would probably cost someone $30 million out of pocket to make it worth everyone's while to hold a fight over there. With budget crunches everywhere, it's unlikely that anyone would be willing to pay a huge site fee unless they pretty much know they'll be getting the money back, like a casino.

The fight needs to be indoors

This one's pretty self-explanatory. In the past, there have been major fights aired in temporary outdoor stadiums, but that just can't happen. First, the liability is too great these days to have a large temporary stadium. Second, if a fight gets rained out, everyone loses lots of money. It wasn't such a big deal when fights were being aired on network TV - if there's a rainout on World Wide of Sports, they can just put the fight on next week's edition, and everyone's pretty happy. But in a pay-per-view situation, a rescheduled fight would probably require months of remarketing to ensure that they do not lose massive sales. This precludes a lot of otherwise attractive venues from being feasible.

To make up the difference, you need a massive venue with high ticket prices

Even assuming that a fight at the MGM Grand would only generate $23.6 million, in order to make more money than in Vegas, you would need to sell out a 100,000 person stadium at an average price of $236 a ticket. A 65,000 seat stadium would need to sell at an average price of $363 a ticket. A 40,000 seat venue (i.e., a baseball stadium with a retractable roof) would need to sell at an average price of nearly $600 a ticket. And to achieve as much upside as Vegas' potential, you'd need to increase those average ticket prices by 50%. Outside of Vegas, where are you going to find enough people with that kind of money? In addition, when looking at these averages, you need to keep in mind that you can't charge nearly as much for a majority of the seats in the venue, simply because tens of thousands of people aren't going to pay $300 for nosebleed seats.

While holding the fight in a huge venue outside of Vegas is an intriguing idea, it's just not that feasible. Without some deep pocket guaranteeing a lot of cash on the side, it's unlikely that a fight outside of Vegas could generate more revenue than a fight in Vegas. And in this economy, I don't know if anyone's ego is that big.

14 comments | 0 recs | Share

Cotto-Pacquiao does 1.25 million buys on pay-per-view

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 12:16 PM EST in News Comment 19 comments

HBO has released the numbers, and the Miguel Cotto-Manny Pacquiao fight last Saturday generated 1.25 million buys on pay-per-view, beating out Mayweather-Marquez as the biggest boxing event of 2009. The fight generated $70 million in pay-per-view revenue to go along with its $8.84 million live gate.

The 1.25 million number equals what Pacquiao did a year ago against Oscar de la Hoya, though it doesn't quite reach the larger numbers that were being bandied about this week. Bob Arum said he thought it was looking like about 1.3 million, and he turned out to be correct. Usually, Bob is one of those going high, but I think this number more than pleases everyone involved.

Hatton-Pacquiao in May was a big success. Mayweather-Marquez was a phenomenal success. And this fight -- bigger than both -- is just more proof that if you put together fights and build guys right, boxing is far, far from dead.

I would have said six months ago that a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight approaching the all-time PPV record set by Oscar and Floyd back in 2007 would have been impossible, but now I think there's a real chance there. Breaking two million buys is damn hard. In fact, Oscar-Floyd is the only fight that has ever done it, with Lewis-Tyson being No. 2 all-time at 1.99 million.

But I think Mayweather-Pacquiao can do it. I don't know if they will, but HBO has already said they'll be putting unheard of backing behind this must-see event should the parties work out a deal, and it seems to just about all of us that a deal not getting worked out is almost unthinkable. Way too much money to be made.

Boxing is on a nice little roll this year, and really has been the last few years or so. Slowly but surely, the mainstream media is starting to get over their "boxing is dead" obsession, and I'm hoping that a Floyd-Manny fight will be the last time I ever have to read articles from basketball writers titled, "The fight to get boxing off the ropes," or what have you.

Congratulations to HBO, Top Rank and of course, the fighters.

19 comments | 0 recs | Share

Mandatory Eight Count: Kessler-Ward Edition

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 11:53 AM EST in News Comment 2 comments

I don't know if you've heard, but Andre Ward has a really big chance to make a name for himself tomorrow.

Ward's Super chance at breakthrough (Yahoo! Sports)
Kevin Iole looks at Andre Ward, the Olympic gold medalist and nice man: "I would imagine it’s a problem fighting Andre Ward. He’s such a nice guy, you want to hug him rather than punch him in the nose. He’s polite to a fault, he smiles easily and he’s never got a bad word to say about anyone."

Round One’s Almost Done (Max Boxing)
Julian Kasdin's take on the fight. "This fight is taking place in Andre’s hometown, and while there are some doubts as to whether Mikkel is still the fighter to beat at 168, I do not think Ward will be the one to beat him."

Andre Ward Vs. Mikkel Kessler On Saturday (The Sweet Science)
David A. Avila compares Ward to another former American gold medalist, Oscar de la Hoya, and has some solid quotes from Ward. The best: "If I didn’t expect to beat every man in this tournament then I shouldn’t be in this tournament."

Notebook: Ward ready to fight for title (ESPN)
Dan Rafael quotes Ward as being very ready for the fight. "I've been here before with the Olympics and it's something that I relish. There's always going to be pressure. It just depends on how you deal with the pressure."

Andre Ward – American Hero, Take Two (Boxing Scene)
Thomas Gerbasi says Ward is -- get this! -- ready. (Well, Ward says it in his column.)

Kessler all set for Ward defence (BBC Sport)
Believe it or not, some people are actually focusing on Mikkel Kessler a little bit.

USA hopes riding on Ward (USA Today)
Hacksaw Jim Duggan will be rooting for Ward, tough guy.

Can Ward take a punch? We'll find out (San Francisco Chronicle)
Kessler's trainer doesn't think Ward likes to get hit. Ward wonders who has ever hit Kessler to show how good his chin is.

2 comments | 0 recs | Share

Colombian Likar Ramos captured an interim super featherweight title by scoring a unanimous decision over Angel Granados. Juan Carlos Salgado recently won the regular title by knocking out Jorge Linares in the first round.

about 8 hours ago Brickhaus 2 comments 0 recs

Please Welcome The Boxing Bulletin to SBN

by SC on Nov 20, 2009 10:17 AM EST in Features Comment 8 comments

I'd like everyone at Bad Left Hook to join me in a warm welcome to The Boxing Bulletin, SBN's newest site and a brother community for us in covering the sweet science. You may already be familiar with the site, as they've been pumping out fantastic analysis for a while now. They're a wonderful team of writers and I couldn't be happier to call them colleagues under the SBN banner.

Some recent highlights from The Boxing Bulletin that will get you familiar with their work:

Pacquiao's Triumph, Cotto's Tragedy by Jeff Pryor

Rendall Munroe-Simone Maludrottu Preview by Matt Chudley (Bad Left Hook will cover this show live at 5pm ET today, and this is as good a preview for the fight as you're going to find)

Boxing's Best Seniors - 10 Big Wins from Fighters Over 40 by Andrew Fruman

Ryan Rhodes-Jamie Moore Photo Gallery (Photographer: Chris Royle)

Interview with Odlanier Solis' Trainers Pedro Diaz & Russ Abner by Ivan Montiel

David Tua Can Still Make Some Noise by Lee Payton

8 comments | 0 recs