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Mandatory Eight Count - Lara Stepping Up, and Weekend Results

Dunne will try to defend his title against Poonsawat this Saturday.
Dunne will try to defend his title against Poonsawat this Saturday.
  • According to James Slater, Erislandy Lara is looking to fight for a title in his next match.  The fighter is now 8-0 after a first round knockout of Jose Varela on the untelevised Mayweather-Marquez undercard.   Potential targets: Cory Spinks and Kermit Cintron.  Fighting for a world title, especially in a higher weight class, in under 10 fights is always a risky proposition, but if there's someone who's ready for that, it's probably Lara.  The only real question marks are whether he has the stamina and the chin, but on a technical level, he's already better than all but a few in the weight class.
  • Over the weekend, Sebastian Sylvester finally won that elusive middleweight title, defeating Giovanni Lorenzo via split decision for the IBF title vacated by Arthur Abraham.  While it is a paper title, Sylvester has done about as much as anyone to deserve a title, having beaten many of the best middleweights on the European circuit.  It also makes three unworthy split decisions this weekend.  By all accounts, this fight, much like John-Juarez and Katsidis-Escobedo, was a relative blowout, with Lorenzo only having his moments.
  • On Friday night Shobox, Travis Kaufman was knocked out by Tony Grano in an absolutely wild fight.  Neither fighter appeared to be scared of the other's power, and mostly were blocking punches with their faces.  by the end of the third round, Grano looked completely gassed.  In the fourth, Kaufman pounced on him, and right as Grano was about to go down, he (likely intentionally) low blowed Kaufman, buying him some precious time.  Kaufman jumped back on him when the action restarted, landing a number of huge, clean power shots, and Grano spit out his mouthpiece to buy even more time.  However, the tide shifted when action restarted.  Kaufman jumped on Grano again, but Grano landed a huge right hand bomb during the middle of an exchange that rocked Kaufman, and then Grano landed about 15 consecutive haymakers to Kaufman's skull in order to knock him out.  On the undercard, Chris Avalos settled down quickly after a couple of shaky rounds to knock out Giovanni Caro in the fourth round.
  • American undefeated featherweight prospect Matt Remillard beat previously undefeated Rafael Lorta via 4th round TKO.  Remillard's counterpunching style could lead to some success.  On ESPN, Guillermo Rigondeaux had no problems dispatching of Giovanni Andrade, who looked awfully frightened to be in there with a two-fight veteran, considering Andrade has fought over 60.  This has been a pattern with the Cubans on the Arena Box stable, and while I have no way to prove it, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little monkey business going on with Ahmet Oner and the Cubans' early opponents.
  • Hasim Rahman has been dropped from the Tua-Cameron undercard due to payment disputes.  Rahman was originally scheduled to face the winner, but will not be doing that either.  I guess Rahman needs the money, but at this point he'd probably be better served trying to help guide his son, a big shot amateur prospect, to Olympic glory.
  • OK, it's Deadspin.  But they have an interesting (but deprecating) take on Max Kellerman trying to force a beef between Shane Mosley and Floyd Mayweather after Mayweather defeated Juan Manuel Marquez.  OK, we get it folks.  You don't like Max Kellerman.  Neither does the majority of other boxing fans.  But at the end of the day, he's under contract, and it's not like HBO gets its ratings because of the post-fight interviews.
  • Not the highest profile bout of the coming week, but I'd bet a decent amount that it ends up being the most exciting.  Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym has arrived in Ireland and says he's ready to give Bernard Dunne a tough fight.  Poonsawat says he wants to become the Thai Manny Pacquiao.  A catchier nickname that people can actually pronounce might be a start.  All 27 Thais in Ireland showed up for his arrival.  Also, Tyson Fury, who's a gypsy of part-Irish heritage, will be fighting some scrub on the undercard, making his Irish debut
  • If you're a quasi-celebrity who nobody's ever heard of and have always wanted to beat up Joey Buttafuoco, here's your chance

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