Need Boxing tickets? eSeats.com can help you secure premium boxing for all up coming matches. We also sell Ultimate Fighting Championship Tickets and Pride Fighting tickets. Call our office at 800-660-6031 or to view tickets, select from a fight below.
Welterweight champion
Hits: Although many serious boxing fans are not enamored with the idea
of a Mayweather rematch with Oscar De La Hoya, which is being planned
for September, the fight will be another huge mainstream sports attraction.
That is a great thing for boxing because there are so few fights that
can capture the attention of the public at large.
Misses: A rematch with De La Hoya remains the most lucrative fight that
Mayweather can make, but let's be real -- the one we all want to see is
Mayweather-Miguel Cotto. As long as Cotto keeps winning, Mayweather won't
be able to avoid him forever.
2. Joe Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs)
Super middleweight champion
Hits: At long last, Calzaghe is coming to America to put his perfect record
on the line while moving up in weight to face an all-time great in Bernard
Hopkins, who is still one of the best fighters in the world. And to make
the situation even sweeter, the fight will be on HBO, not on pay-per-view.
Can't ask for much more than that.
Misses: Wouldn't it have been nice if Calzaghe had come over here to fight
top opponents years ago instead of waiting until he was 35 and nearing
the end of his career?
3. Manny Pacquiao (45-3-2, 34 KOs)
Junior lightweight
Hits: A lot of people take Pacquiao's accomplishments for granted, but
you should keep one thing in mind: He made his professional debut at 106
pounds and has been a dominant fighter all the way up the scale. A win
against Juan Manuel Marquez in their much-anticipated March 15 rematch
would give Pacquiao a title in his fourth division (flyweight, junior
featherweight, featherweight and junior lightweight).
Misses: Nothing to complain about here. Move along.
4. Bernard Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs)
Light heavyweight champion
Hits: At 43, Hopkins is not closing his career with pointless, easy fights.
He's taking on the best opponent he could possibly face in Calzaghe. He
deserves credit for that. Misses: Hopkins shamefully continues to unnecessarily
bring skin color into his match with Calzaghe by refusing to back off
his racist "I'll never lose to a white boy" quote. Disgusting
and unacceptable.
5. Juan Manuel Marquez (48-3-1, 35 KOs)
Junior lightweight champion
Hits: If the March 15 rematch between Marquez and Pacquiao is half as
good as their great 2004 featherweight championship fight, it will still
be a fight of the year candidate. Misses: It could be a rough March for
the Marquez family. Juan Manuel could certainly lose to Pacquiao in a
fight that comes two weeks after his younger brother, Rafael Marquez,
goes into a junior featherweight championship rubber match against Israel
Vazquez as the underdog.
6. Miguel Cotto (31-0, 25 KOs)
Welterweight titlist
Hits: While Mayweather sits idle counting his money and looking at a fall
rematch with De La Hoya, Cotto is on a mission to clean out the star-studded
welterweight division by beating everyone except Mayweather, who doesn't
want to fight him at this point. Cotto has already bumped off Zab Judah
and Shane Mosley and he blew away future titleholder Carlos Quintana.
Next is a fun fight with Alfonso Gomez on April 12. A Cotto win will set
the stage for a big July fight against the winner of the Antonio Margarito-Kermit
Cintron rematch. While Cotto keeps lining 'em up, Mayweather won't even
discuss a Cotto fight.
Misses: Mayweather-Cotto is one of the biggest fights in the sport, but
it isn't happening, although it sure isn't Cotto's fault.
7. Winky Wright (51-4-1, 25 KOs)
Middleweight
Hits: Although some have written off Wright since his competitive loss
to Hopkins last summer (which, by the way, came well over Wright's natural
weight), it's hard to ignore this stat: It was the Winkster's first defeat
since a highly controversial decision to an in-his-prime Fernando Vargas
all the way back in 1999. Misses: Wright hasn't fought since facing Hopkins
in July 2007 and there's nothing in the works for him. The longer he sits
out, the more he fades from our consciousness. He'd be best served by
taking a smaller fight and getting back in the groove.
8. Israel Vazquez (42-4, 32 KOs)
Junior featherweight champion
Hits: Vazquez's impending trilogy with Rafael Marquez has a chance to
go down in history alongside those such as Ali-Frazier, Zale-Graziano,
Bowe-Holyfield, Barrera-Morales and Gatti-Ward as among the most exciting
ever.
Misses: It's not the fault of the fighters because they deserve the attention,
but as much as all of us fight freaks can't wait for the rubber match,
it's almost impossible for these guys to gain any serious mainstream attention.
That's a shame.
9. Rafael Marquez (37-4, 33 KOs)
Junior featherweight
Hits: Despite taking a lot of punishment and being stopped by Vazquez
in the sixth round of the epic rematch in August, Marquez isn't taking
a breather. He's going right back in with the guy who stopped him when
few would have blamed him for taking another fight.
Misses: If he loses the rubber match to Vazquez, where does he go? Marquez
is 32 and it's probably all downhill from there.
10. Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KOs)
Middleweight champion
Hits: Pavlik's knockout victory against Jermain Taylor to win the middleweight
championship in September 2007 culminated an exciting and dramatic fight.
There's no reason to think the rematch is going to be much different.
Misses: It wasn't the Pavlik camp's idea, but the rematch with Taylor
is at 166 pounds and, therefore, not a championship fight. Pavlik didn't
have a choice because those were the terms of the rematch clause in the
original contract. It's a little disappointing though.