Boxing ring will be busy Saturday

Boxing will take center stage this weekend, as several local fighters will take to the ring.

The Rock Boxing Gym in Salinas will play host to Rock War VIII, an amateur boxing show featuring more than 40 fighters, many of them local. The event takes place at 1 p.m. Saturday and will go into the night.

More than 20 fights will be on the card. There aren’t multiple rings, which means each fight is going to be front and center in front of the audience.

“It’s going to be one fight right after another,” said James Jimenez, head boxing coach and owner of the Rock Boxing Gym.

This is also going to be one of the first events in which new U.S. amateur boxing rules will be implemented. Of note, fighters with older than 19 will not wear headgear. The International Boxing Association made the changes with the hopes of making amateur boxing, which is an Olympic sport, closer to pro boxing. Also being implemented is a 10-point scoring system.

Jimenez said it’s unlikely his fighters will change their approach going into Saturday’s contest.

“We’ve always taught hands up and defense,” Jimenez said.

At least five fighters from Rock Boxing are scheduled to compete in Saturday’s card. Among the five is Angel Alfaro, an 11-year-old competing in his 40^th fight. The 66-pounder is 14-6 in his last 20 fights, according to Jimenez.

Alfaro is a unique boxer because he’s been taught how to box in a methodical way rather than punch as much as possible. As he’s continued to fight, he’s gotten used to the style and can now control the pace of a contest, Jimenez said.

“He sits on punches while other kids are (punching) like bongo drums,” Jimenez said. “Now, he can jab and move, and he hits harder than most. He’s advanced for his age.”

Alfaro practices about 15 hours a week, and he’s no pushover in the gym, even getting respect from the older veterans, Jimenez said.

Other gym participants include:

» Sean Lopez, 9, competing in his fifth fight at 55 pounds

» Pedro Escamilla, 19, making his debut at 135 pounds

» Guillermo Jimenez, 21, making his debut at 155 pounds

» • Ricardo Ayala, 20, making his debut at 195 pounds

imenez said it’s been a joy to watch fighters he and strength and conditioning coach Daniel Corona train over the past year.

“The enjoyment I get is watching them accomplish stuff they couldn’t accomplish as far back as three months ago,” he said. “Having parents there and having their back, that’s the reward.”

Tickets are $15 for people ages 13 and older, $10 for children 5 to 12 and free for children under 5.

The Rock Boxing Gym is located at 285 E. Alisal St., Salinas.

Back in the ring

Salinas boxer Paul Mendez will take on Alfredo Contreras of Los Mochis, Mexico, in a 10-round bout on Saturday at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City.

The fight will be Mendez’s first since competing on Dec. 15 at the Salinas Storm House as part of a Solo Boxeo event televised on Telefutura.

Mendez is 11-2-1 as a pro. He has won his last four fights. Contreras is 13-15-2 as a pro; he’s lost his last two fights. Saturday’s fight will be his first in Northern California; three of his previous four bouts have been in venues throughout Southern California, including the Honda Center in Anaheim.

The Mendez-Contreras fight is the main event of a Don Chargin and Paco Presents boxing card.

Tickets are $35, $45 and $60. Tickets can be purchased at foxrwc.com or at 650-631-3781.

Lacrosse honors

Several Monterey and Santa Cruz county high school lacrosse players received all-American honors from US Lacrosse earlier this month.

Stevenson’s John Jackson was named an all-American by the organization. Jackson, a midfielder, helped Stevenson win the MTAL title.

Palma’s Mario Enea was named the Coach of the Year.

Watsonville’s Alan Medina was named an Academic All-American, and Aptos’ Tyler Sweeney-Marquez was named an All-American. Phil Dundas, an assistant at Aptos, was named the Assistant Coach of the Year.

Softball realignment

The Monterey Bay League didn’t go through much change in the softball ranks.

Only two teams will switch positions among the 14 teams in the league. Seaside, the champions of the Pacific Division, will head up to the Gabilan Division. Monterey, which finished near the bottom of the Gabilan Division, goes down.

Although Seaside comes in as the champions and with a young squad, it will get tested, as three of the other six teams in the division will play 2014 as a defending CCS champion. (Source)

Floyd Mayweather to fight Canelo Alvarez on Sept. 14

Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez agreed to terms late Wednesday to fight in a WBA/WBC super welterweight unification bout. The match will be held at a maximum weight of 152 pounds and will be at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas.

Showtime will distribute the pay-per-view.

The bout is, arguably, the most significant that can be made from a pay-per-view standpoint. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said he thinks the fight has a chance to surpass the 2.5 million sales that Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya generated in 2007 to set the record.

Mayweather, 36, will be fighting just four months after a 12-round decision over Robert Guerrero on May 4. Mayweather hasn’t fought twice in a four-month period since 2001, when he met Diego Corrales on Jan. 20 and then fought Carlos Hernandez on May 26.

“Floyd wanted to give the fans what they wanted to see and this is the fight the fans and the media were calling for,” said Leonard Ellerbe, the CEO of Mayweather Promotions. “Nobody believed him, but Floyd stood up there [at the podium at the post-fight news conference after the win over Guerrero] and told everyone he’d be back in September.

“Canelo is a good young fighter, but he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Floyd said, ‘I’m going to whip that ass.’ This is a whole other level we’re talking about.”

Asked if he saw any way that Mayweather could lose, Ellerbe said, “Impossible.”

Alvarez, who will be 23 in July, is unbeaten like Mayweather, though he has one draw blemishing his record. Mayweather is a perfect 44-0, while Alvarez is 42-0-1 with 30 knockouts. He respects Mayweather, but said he won’t be intimidated and thinks he’ll win.

“He’s a great fighter, but I have intelligence in that ring and I have the same speed he has,” Alvarez said through interpreter Eric Gomez. “I can use my head, but I have that special thing: I have some power that will help me.”

Ellerbe said Mayweather was always focused on making a deal with Alvarez and said no other opponents had been discussed.

Top Rank president Todd duBoef said he will move his fight card featuring a super lightweight title match between Juan Manuel Marquez and Timothy Bradley Jr. – originally planned for Sept. 14 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas – to Oct. 14 so as not to conflict with the Mayweather-Alvarez fight.

Also, the LVH sports book in Las Vegas opened Mayweather as a slightly better than 2-1 favorite. It has Mayweather at minus-250 and Alvarez at plus-210. (Source)

Floyd Mayweather Jr. can’t be considered greatest of all-time due to lack of elite competition

Floyd Mayweather showed yet again why he is, conclusively, the greatest fighter of his generation.

He brilliantly outboxed Robert Guerrero on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden, cruising to a wide unanimous decision in their WBC welterweight title fight that probably would have been a stoppage had he not injured his right hand in the middle of the fight.

Mayweather is far beyond being judged against his peers, but the lack of depth and quality among them keeps him from seriously being regarded as one of the 10 best fighters ever.

Sugar Ray Robinson is, without question, the greatest fighter who ever lived. He was 128-1-2 before he suffered his second defeat, and he beat enough Hall of Famers to fill a football team.

The thing that Robinson, and more recent superstars such as Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran and Marvelous Marvin Hagler, had over Mayweather was elite opposition.

“Let me tell you this right here about the boxing game,” Mayweather’s father, Floyd Sr., said. “There were much better fighters when Sugar Ray Robinson was coming along. There were much better fighters when Joe Louis was coming along. But that’s not my son’s fault. My son beat who’s here today, and if they can’t protect themselves, oh well.”

Mayweather fought most, though not all, of the best of his era. He missed Kostya Tszyu when he was at 140 pounds and to this point, he hasn’t fought Manny Pacquiao.

But he’s reeled off 44 in a row and, in truth, none of them were close. He routed Guerrero on Saturday, connecting on an incredible 60 percent of his power punches while holding Guerrero to just 19 percent overall.

Guerrero had some success in the first two rounds in trying to pin Mayweather along the ropes, where he could maul him. All three judges gave Guerrero the first round for that. But that was it.

Love him or hate him – there is usually no in-between – Mayweather always figures it out. He’s a boxing savant and has been since the first time he pulled on gloves as a child in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Mayweather, who was extraordinarily classy and respectful at the post-fight news conference, took the high road when he was asked where he’d rank himself.

Prior to the fight, he declared himself the best who ever lived. He backed off that on Saturday.

“I take my hat off to Sugar Ray Leonard and all those other fighters who paved the way for me to be where I am at today,” Mayweather said. “I’m not here to match myself against them because, like I said before, I’m not in their era. I respect them. I take my hat off to them. But I’m in my era, and I just do what I do.”

It’s unfortunate that he hasn’t had those kinds of rivals. The Pacquiao fight fell through for a myriad of reasons, despite intense interest from the fan base.

But other than Tszyu and Pacquiao, there aren’t a lot of elite fighters that he hasn’t faced. He’s beaten at least four guys who figure to wind up in the International Boxing Hall of Fame – Arturo Gatti, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto – and may have several more victims who sneak in.

He’s planning to fight on Sept. 14, the first time in about a dozen years that he will have fought twice in four months. He brushed aside questions about Canelo Alvarez, who is probably the biggest threat he faces.

Adrien Broner is the only boxer who is in the same realm with Mayweather in terms of physical gifts, and he’s just moved to welterweight, Mayweather’s division.

But when Broner was asked about a potential fight with Mayweather, his good friend, he made an obscene gesture with both hands.

Any other fighters who might face Mayweather, guys like Amir Khan, Danny Garcia, a potential rematch with Victor Ortiz, would be massive underdogs.

He is so astute, he knows when he needs to adjust, and he did that by bringing his father back to train him. His father taught him the game and helped build him into a fighting machine. He also made him one of history’s foremost defensive boxers.

After his 2012 win over Cotto, Mayweather knew he had to fix things.

“Miguel Cotto hit me with some shots I shouldn’t have been hit with, so I had to bring the defense master back, my father,” Mayweather said as his father, seated a few feet away, beamed.

The elder Mayweather was mortified when he first resumed working with his son and saw bigger fighters, who in the past would have never laid a glove on his son, tagging him with clean shots.

He knew they needed to do some work, and to Floyd Jr.’s credit, he was willing to do what he needed to do.

“I got in his ear and started telling him he can’t take no more punches like that,” Mayweather Sr. said. “In two days, he wasn’t taking those punches any more. He started capitalizing and countering. As we went along, he kept making them miss and then capitalizing. He just got better and better.”

He’s done that throughout his career, and that’s why he is unquestionably the best of this time. But his lack of opposition will never allow him to be compared to guys like Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Muhammad Ali and the sport’s other super elite. (Source)

Scots champ McCallum added to Limond undercard

Heading the undercard is current Scottish middleweight champion Gary McCallum, who will make the first defence of the title he lifted in March this year.

With a professional record of nine wins, McCallum picked up his lastest win with a 98-93 points win over the durable Paul Allison and now will defend his title against Wishaw’s Ryan Scott on the June 7^th card.

The bill will also feature Darren McAdam, George Thomson, Jordon McCorry and Craig Kelly in action. Former Commonwealth title challenger Eddie Doyle also returns to action.

While delighted with acquiring a title, the fighter from Castlemilk area of Glasgow admits he didn’t have it all his own way in his fight with Allison.

“It did take me a few rounds to find my range. Paul is a game fighter, and always comes forward. I lost a few rounds as he was catching me, but after viewing the fight I can see were I can make the improvements, and I hope I can bring those into my title defence.

“I would love to fight for more titles down the line, but I am in no rush. I learnt a lot from my last fight and I look forward to having more of them as I want to develop myself so I can reach my full potential. I will have the right experience if the big title fights come my way. My trainer Willie Downie has kept me ticking over recently and for the Scott fight we have had a good training camp with lots of hill runs and hard sparring.

“I’ve also been working on my strength and conditioning with coach Graeme Downie who will ensure I will be in great shape come June 7^th.” (Source)

Price plans to sleep his way to the top

David Price will be in bed fast asleep shortly before his make or break rematch against Tony Thompson.

The Scouse heavyweight was shocked two rounds by the American southpaw in February, but goes for revenge at Liverpool’s Echo Arena on July 6.

Price, 29, has spent three weeks working under former undisputed world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis in Canada. And the laid back fighting great reckons Price would be more relaxed if he went to bed after he arrived at the venue.   British and Commonwealth champion Price, who stands 6ft 9in tall, has now ordered promoter Frank Maloney to deliver a king sized bed to his dressing room.

Price said: “I will have to get a king size bed but I will certainly have one there after listening to Lennox telling me what he used to do.

“He always had a bed in his dressing room and had something like two hours’ sleep before the fight after getting to the arena early.

“He said that helped him get rid of all the pre-fight tension because he would switch off, go to sleep, and then wake up.

“It’s a good idea and something I will certainly be trying. Look – if someone like Lennox Lewis benefitted from that approach, it can’t do me any harm, can it?”

Lewis will fly into Britain two weeks before his 12 round non-title clash against two time world title challenger Thompson.

Price added: “We always work hard before every fight, but working with Lennox took me to a whole new level of training.

“We got to see what he used to do when he was at the top of his game and it was an eye opener. There would be three people watching me punch a bag and as soon as I made a mistake they were on me. It was a refreshing change and a lot of the training completely different. It was also good to sit down and talk to Lennox about the obstacles he had to overcome.

“He showed me so many different things that I wouldn’t be able to use them all in this one fight.”

On the same bill British light-welterweight champion Darren Hamilton, will be making his second defence of his title against Adil Anwar. (Source)

Afolabi - ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to beat Huck’

On June 8, the man from London will renew his feud with defending champion Marco Huck (35-2-1, 25 KOs).

After previously losing and fighting Huck to a draw, Afolabi believes that now it is his time to shine at the Max-Schmeling-Halle in Berlin, Germany. For that reason, the 33-year-old has brought himself into tremendous shape due to changes in his preparations leading up to the fight.

In the following interview, Afolabi explains what he has done differently this time round and why he is time has come at last.

Ola Afolabi, it has been over a year that you last stepped into a ring. In May 2012, you fought out a draw against your very next opponent Marco Huck. What do you remember of the fight?

Ola Afolabi: It was extremely tough. Towards the end of it, I lost my focus. That allowed him to get back into the bout. My mental preparation ahead of the fight was not ideal and that took its toll back then.

How is your training going? You have been in Germany for a few weeks now…

Ola Afolabi: It has been really good. I have started my preparations back in November of last year. I went to Big Bear in California to work on my conditioning, which I have also been working on while we were staying in Zinnowitz, Germany. If I compare my current fitness level to previous camps, it is a difference of day and night.

According to yourself, you have been preparing for this fight since November. Is there any danger that you might have been doing too much and that your intense training could have cost too much energy?

Ola Afolabi: No, there is no danger whatsoever. I have mostly been working on my conditioning by running a lot as well as on my mental strength. Sparring only started a few weeks ago. I will be at my best when I step into the ring come June 8.

What do you mean when you say, that you have been doing things you were not doing in your previous preparations?

Ola Afolabi: I have been learning from fight to fight. As I did not have an amateur career, I had to gain experience by fighting against professionals. I am still a raw product. A big difference is that I have changed my diet. I am eating properly and take vitamin supplements. I quit eating cheeseburgers and other junk food and have turned to healthy food instead. It makes a huge difference. I could make the weight for the fight right now. So by not having to make weight I can concentrate on my training and keep my focus.

You have been quite openly talking about your preparations via the social media, keeping your fans but also your opponents up to date with the progress. Why do you do that and isn’t there a danger of giving away too much?

Ola Afolabi: I am very proud of myself and the way the preparation has been going so far. I want my fans to know, that I am not just talking but backing it up. It also keeps me motivated when the supporters give me a positive feedback. Moreover, I am only posting photos of my progress. I do not talk about my sparring and I do not go into detail. All it does is that it should motivate Huck. He knows that I am ready. So he better be ready himself.

On June 8, you will try to grab the WBO World Championship off Huck for a third time. With what kind of attitude are you going into the fight?

Ola Afolabi: My attitude is pretty simple. This was my belt, this is my belt and I am coming to finally take it from him. I honestly do not see how I could lose this fight. I have been working to hard on myself and on the tactics. I should already have won the title last year. Now the time has finally come.

After two previous encounters, you must know Marco Huck quite well now. Where do you see his strengths and weaknesses?

Ola Afolabi: Huck always comes to fight. When he turns up, he is going for it. He is a bit like a robot and just keeps coming. He is actually too tough to know when he has been hurt. I do not want to talk about his weaknesses. You can ask me again after I beat him.

Obviously, you are planning to win. If everything works out for you, would you then be prepared to face him a fourth time?

Ola Afolabi: I do not know. If it is good business why not. But first, I would like to take on the mandatory challenger Firat Arslan. After that, I would go for Huck again.

What will be the outcome of June 8?

Ola Afolabi: I am not going into the fight looking for a knockout. That would increase the risk of over-pacing during the first few rounds. However, I see myself stopping Huck early. Regardless of that, I am going to do whatever it takes to leave the ring as the winner. (Source)

Ravens CB Jimmy Smith takes up boxing regimen, loses 10 pounds

The last time that imposing cornerback Jimmy Smith shadowed a wide receiver in an actual game, his physical coverage of San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree provided an edge in the final moments of the Ravens’ Super Bowl victory.

Months later, Smith has been honing his game and getting into optimal shape and health after dealing with a sports hernia surgery last season that sidelined him for five games.

Through a rigorous boxing regimen with a local trainer in Timonium, the 6-foot-2 former first-round draft pick has dropped 10 pounds to get down to a lean 200 pounds.

“I feel great, I feel like I did in college,” Smith said. “I actually did some boxing and trying to get my core strength. My trainers told me to work on that for my back and groin. I’m doing conditioning drills, speed bag, no heavy bag.

“A defensive back needs quick hands. The groin really hurt my game last year, playing through that all of last season and finally having surgery. Now that’s better. I feel 100 percent better.”

Smith finished the regular season with 31 tackles and no interceptions, but had a strong postseason where he displayed the potential the Ravens had identified in him as an All-Big 12 Conference selection at the University of Colorado.

A history of injuries has curtailed Smith’s impact in his first two seasons, limiting him to five starts, 49 career tackles, two interceptions and 11 pass deflections.

Smith dealt with a high ankle sprain that prevented him from playing in four games as a rookie and also had a bout with back spasms.

Now, he’s slated to compete with veteran Corey Graham for a starting job. However it turns out, both cornerbacks figure to get a hefty workload.

“Anybody can emerge and be a starter,” Smith said. “I’ve been wanting to starter since Day One, but God had a plan. I’m still just learning, trying to become a better player in the classroom and on the field, trying to diagnose plays and read things and be a student of the game.

“You always want to go uphill. You never want to digress. I’m trying to pick up where I left off and do even better. I feel like I’ve improved. Everything is a work in progress. I’m still trying to climb the mountain. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I’ll be there.” (Source)