Nate Campbell, who helped Tampa, Fla., police chase down a couple of suspected purse snatchers last month, stole the show Thursday.

Campbell knocked the mundane out of a conference call and talked Timothy Bradley into a freewheeling exchange, which is something the favored Bradley promises won’t happen when they meet for the World Boxing Organization’s version of the 140-pound title in a Showtime-televised bout on Aug. 1 at Agua Caliente Casino in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

The junior welterweights were still talking — or at least Campbell was — when promoter Gary Shaw said goodbye to a long-distance preliminary that could get interesting at opening bell in a ring about 10 miles from where Bradley grew up in the California desert east of Los Angeles.

The entertaining give-and-take erupted just when the call seemed to be ending. That’s when Campbell, who had said he was sick of talking about the fight, talked a lot, stirring up placid waters with a rhetorical lure that got the businesslike Bradley to drop his usual cool.

There’s a possibility of bout between World Boxing Council lightweight champion Edwin Valero (25-0, 25 KO’s) and WBC super featherweight champion Humberto Soto(48-7-2, 31 KO’s) to take place on the undercard of the Miguel Cotto vs. Manny Pacquiao on November 14th, according to Dan Rafael. Soto, 29, is looking to move up a weight class in search of bigger fights and might be interested in facing the unbeaten Valero.

Soto has defended his WBC super featherweight twice since winning it in a 12 round decision over Francisco Lorenzo in December 2008, beating Antonio Davis and Benoit Gaudet by knockout in 2009.

If Soto were to stay at super featherweight, there would be few opportunity for big fights aside from potential fights against Yuriorkis Gamboa and Roman Martinez. Neither of those fights would bring Soto the kind of money that he could get if he could somehow lure lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez or possibly light welterweight Manny Pacquiao into a fight.

Timothy Bradley is undefeated, a two-time titleholder and confident. He also seems to be frustrated about the perception of a particular fighter from the Philippines.

The product of the Southern California desert town of Palm Springs said a victory over Nate Campbell on Aug. 1 in neighboring Rancho Mirage will solidify his position as the top 140-pounder in the world. Then he remembered Manny Pacquiao.

Bradley is rated No. 1 at 140 pounds by THE RING, one notch below champion Pacquiao.

“Manny Pacquiao is the best fighter supposedly … whatever,” he said Thursday on a conference call, which included Campbell. “He’s the poster kid. He’s not fighting the best in the division, though. He’s fighting bigger fighters who are cutting weight and chopping them up because they’re weakened coming down in weight.”

Yes, it sounds like sour grapes. However, no one can say Bradley (24-0, 11 knockouts) is just sitting around complaining; he’s fighting hard to get to the top.

Case in point: He will have fought three of the best 140-pounders in the world in a 14-month period, an extremely impressive feat.

By Brian O. Blake
Only Shane Mosely will be disappointed upon hearing that Top Rank CEO Bob Arum officially announced today that pound for pound king Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao 49-3-2 (37) will take on Puerto Rican sensation and WBO welterweight champ Miguel Cotto 34-1 (27).
“Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto have reached …

While nearly all my colleagues have celebrated this week’s announcement that Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao will get together in a ring on Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, I’m just a little bit less than giddy about it all.

Don’t get me wrong, the fact that Bob Arum has created a scenario in which the reigning WBO welterweight champion and IBO junior welterweight title-holder are “signed, sealed and soon to be delivered” will ensure boxing is a SportsCenter lead item come fight week.

The best at 147 pounds is fighting the best at 140.

And that, without question, is a good thing.

Arum said a publicity tour is set to begin “right after Labor Day” for the bout, which will be broadcast on pay-per-view by HBO and billed as “Fire Power.”

Neither an agreed-to weight nor a championship belt on the line have been confirmed, though it’s been widely assumed the two will be competing for Cotto’s title at a contracted weight of 145 pounds.

Finally, clearer heads prevailed this week. Shortly there will be a press conference to announce that Manny Pacquiao 49-3-2 (37) the best junior welterweight in the world, will fight WBO welterweight champ Miguel Cotto 34-1 (27) on November 14th in Las Vegas. Cotto’s WBO welterweight title will be on the line, however there is a 145 pound catch-weight clause in the contract. Catch-weight fights are not something I like, but this isn’t too bad and shouldn’t have much or any bearing as to the outcome. If Pacquiao wins, it’s legit and he gets full credit, and if Cotto wins he gets full credit and it can’t be said he picked a smaller fighter.

The Arum/Roach/Pacquiao faction did the right thing by scrapping the clause insisting that Cotto had to weigh in at 143. What they’ve now done is put together a bout that will be regarded as the only true super-fight of the year, being that two of boxing’s best are meeting at or near their prime. Both fighters have a huge following; one is an all-time great (Pacquiao) and the other (Cotto) is an outstanding/great fighter. This fight will make the fan interest for Pacquiao-Hatton look like the hype before an NFL wildcard game compared to the Super Bowl.

By Raymond Markarian

Like any good fighter, Angelo Dundee takes the bounces as they come. It is no secret that the boxing wizard knows the game better than most. Dundee does not claim to know what boxing needs to become a mainstream sport in the United States once again, but his words are carefully calculated and considered.

‘Boxing is in of need this’ or ‘boxing is need of that’ is not the prescription Dundee thinks that fight fans need to worry about. “We need to stay away from the hypothetical questions,” Dundee said. “It is impossible to compare a fighter to another fighter. And how a fighter from the past would match up with a current champion is impossible to tell because you never meet the same guy twice.”

Taking Breaks and Taking Chances

How hard a trainer pushes his fighters is essential to any training camp, he says. When Foreman postponed the Rumble in the Jungle due to injury, Dundee kept Muhammad Ali in Zaire, but it was the fighter’s decision whether or not to keep training, not the maestro’s.

Nacho Beristain, the trainer of Juan Manuel Marquez, was left with a difficult decision last month after Floyd Mayweather postponed the anticipated fight against Marquez because of an apparent rib injury. The bout was supposed to take place on July 18th, but was pushed back for two months to September 19th.

Ricky Hatton has scoffed at the idea of fighting Amir Khan — and dropped his heaviest hint yet that he will retire.
The Hitman has just been released from hospital following a stomach bug but has been mentioned as a possible opponent for the newly-crowned WBA junior welterweight champion.
Khan and trainer …

Mexico City, Mex. (July 23) -Reports out of Mexico City, where five-time World Champion Juan Manuel Marquez is back in training for his scheduled September 19 bout (at MGM Grand in Las Vegas and televised live on HBO Pay-Per-View®) against Floyd Mayweather (Mayweather vs. Marquez “Number One/Numero Uno”), confirm that …

By Mark Vester
Hall-of-Fame trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a knockout victory for his fighter, pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao. Roach says Pacquiao will be too much for WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto. The two collide on November 14 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Unlike some of Pacquiao’s other past …

By Steve Kim
In what had become basically a mere formality, it was announced by Top Rank on Monday afternoon that Manny Pacquiao will be facing Miguel Cottoon November 14th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, at a catch-weight of 145-pounds.
” This is one of the most exciting fights I’ve …

By James Slater
Simply put, it’s the fight all of boxing wants to see - reigning pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao against the man who held the mythical title before him, Floyd Mayweather Junior. And, according to the 39-0(25) master who is currently getting ready to make his return against Mexico’s Juan …

Some boxers – some people, in fact – are tough to like. Floyd Mayweather Jr is one of those people. He is arrogant to a point some way beyond the demands of his business, and his latest pronouncements confirm that if he were ever to get in the ring with Manny Pacquiao, the only people cheering him on would be those connected to him by blood or money.

In a teleconference this week to prop up his ailing comeback fight against Juan Manuel Márquez, the man who changed his nickname from Pretty Boy to Money and has the taxman on his back for $6m (£3.7m) refused to say how he injured his ribs, the alleged reason their July fight was put back to 19 September.

“Believe me,” he said, begging to be believed, “it wasn’t a small guy that done it, but it didn’t even come from sparring. When it happened, I tried to work through it. I was sparring for a while but then it happened again. I said, ‘You know what? I can’t try to be a superhero. I’ve got to take time off and let it heal’. I’d never tell exactly what happened. I just had a rib injury.”

Maybe the boogie man did it. Maybe Neil Armstrong is still on the moon. Maybe someone who talks to himself should look up the word dialogue.

When someone asked Márquez what he thought of Mayweather’s explanation, he followed the script like a willing business partner. “I’m sure that there’s solid evidence,” he said. “There should be some paperwork from the doctor, and I’m sure he presented the paperwork that was needed. I was calm. I’m fine. Things happen for a reason.”

They certainly do. And that reason, if we were to be cynical about a business that is about as transparent as a brick wall, is that more people were buying tickets to the Las Vegas monorail on a slow morning than were interested in their July show. And Mayweather was about as interested in fighting Márquez as those people on the monorail.

The fight that every boxing fan wants to see is Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in the battle of the two best pound-for-pound boxers in the world. But before we get to see that, we’re going to have to hope Mayweather beats Juan Manuel Marquez on September 19, and Pacquiao wins his tentatively scheduled fight with Miguel Cotto on November 14.

Well, there’s good news for boxing fans: Mayweather thinks that’s going to happen. Mayweather is, of course, always confident in his own abilities, so it’s no surprise that he picks himself to beat Marquez. But he also offered a prediction about how Pacquiao vs. Cotto will go, saying that Cotto no longer appears to be an elite boxer after the beating he took at the hands of Antonio Margarito last summer.

“I think after the Margarito fight, mentally, Cotto is not the same,” Mayweather told ESPN’s Brian Kenny. “You can never say what can happen in the sport of boxing, but I think Pacquiao is a quick starter, and if I had to lean toward a fighter, I would say Pacquiao.”

FORMER two-time world champion Gerry Peñalosa is willing to fight again but he made it clear that he will only entertain an offer if there will be a world title on the line.

The 36-year old resident of Paranaque City in Metro Manila in the Philippines was offered to see action on the planned card of Top Rank and Solar Sports in either Araneta Coliseum or Ynares Center in Antipolo City on August 29, not at Waterfront Hotel in Lahug, Cebu City as originally planned.

Penalosa (54-7-2, 36 KOs) confirmed in an exclusive interview yesterday that he was told to prepare for a possible bout, and the three possible options include a rematch against Daniel Ponce de Leon (36-7-2, 31 KOs) of Mexico, a clash against his fellow world champ Eric “Hands of Steel” Morel (41-2, 21 KOs) of Puerto Rico or a collision against another popular Mexican, Jorge “Travieso” Arce (52-5-1, 40 KOs).

WBO light flyweight champion Ivan “Iron Boy” Calderon (32-0-1, 6 KOs) is anxious to return to the ring and reinforce that he is still the pound-for-pound best light flyweight in boxing. In his last fight with now three-time world title challenger Rodel Mayol (25-3-1, 19 KOs) in June at the Madison Square Garden was halted after six rounds due to a cut suffered by Calderon as a result of an accidental headbutt in round four. The bout then went to the scorecards where one judge had it for Calderon, one had it for Mayol, and one had it even making the result a draw.

Calderon is currently training and in preparation for a possible upcoming fight. He speaks about his last fight, what’s next, and hopes of landing a showdown with IBF junior flyweight champion Brian Viloria down the road.

After having some time to reflect on your fight with Mayol what are your thoughts on the bout?

One thing I can tell you for sure was that the ten month layoff did play a factor. Going into the fight I felt really good and I prepared extremely well, but there is a big difference between sparring and live action. I’m happy I was able to get six rounds of live action in.

In a recent interview conducted by our good friend John Martinez of IronBoxing.com, Roger Mayweather, the Uncle and trainer for Floyd Mayweather Jr., spoke out on many topics. One such topic was Manny Pacquiao.

Roger who never holds back any punches with his assessments of fighters, did not go easy on Pacquiao. Roger gave Martinez his description of the “People’s Champion” Manny Pacquiao.

Roger wasted no time, dissing Pacquiao for not being shit! “Manny Pacquiao ain’t sh*t. The only reason why people are even mentioning Manny’s name is because he whooped De La Hoya’s ass. And how did he do it? He made Oscar drain his own ass in weight and drop that weight. After that, it ain’t like he beat a great motherf*cker in Ricky Hatton. Everyone knows Ricky has no defense or skills.”

Both Marquez and his promoter Oscar De La Hoya backed claims by Mayweather that the American was still the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, despite his inactivity in the ring.

“Mayweather is the best,” Marquez said. “He retired undefeated. When I fought Manny I thought I beat him both times.”

De La Hoya, beaten by Mayweather on a split decision in May 2007 and by Pacquiao by a stoppage after eight rounds last December, added: “I’d have to go with Floyd.

“I felt more skill coming out of Mayweather than I did with Pacquiao.

“The winner between Mayweather and Marquez will be the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.”

There’s an old saying that “nice guys finish last”, but in WBO Featherweight champion Steven Luevano let’s just say he’s an exception to the rule. He has had close to 300 amateur bouts so you could say he paid his dues before entering the pro ranks in June of 2000. He was the Olympic alternate to Rocky Juarez who I guess you could say is now Luevano’s alternate being the WBO’s #3 contender. In the mean time #1 contender Bernabe Concepcion, 29-1-1 (16) gets his shot August 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Luevano got off on the right foot signing with 2008’s Manager of the Year Cameron Dunkin who has had 13 world champions. “Steven is a real hard working blue collar type of guy. He’s a really good person who is very honest and has no ego. He’s very quiet and very, very loyal,” said Dunkin. “He and his wife Marina have been together since they were 16 years old. They have 3 kids together and they are crazy about each other and they love their children to death. They do all kinds of activities with their kids. The one thing I can say about Steven is I wish I could manage 10 more fighters like him,” he added.

I have to say after talking to Luevano over the phone it comes through loud and clear how humble of a person he is. I had the pleasure of seeing him fight for the first time in person in his 4th defense defeating previously unbeaten Australian Billy Dib, 21-1 (11), the WBO Asian Pacific champion, by winning a decision over 12 rounds. “He didn’t seem to be too happy after the fight,” said Luevano. Seems Dib admitted he wasn’t the best fighter “that night” last October in Atlantic City!

The recent conference call for the September 19 bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez was a jab-fest on pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather, coming out of retirement and fighting for the first time since December 2007, gave Manny some praise but quickly began to launch his verbal attack.

"Pacquiao is a good fighter. I don’t take nothing from him," Mayweather said. "He hasn’t done nothing I haven’t done. Where was he when I was dominating in the ’90s? He hasn’t called me out. I’m not hard to find. I ain’t worried about him. With or without him, I’m comfortable. I’m happy. He don’t make me (nothing). I don’t chase opponents. Opponents chase me.

Saturday, September 19 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the fight dubbed “Number One/Numero Uno” between Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. and WBO lightweight titlist, Juan Manuel Marquez will air live on HBO PPV.

One need only listen to the terrible promotional name (“Number One/Numero Uno”) in order to understand that this fight is lacking some serious drama, emotion, and substance.

I’m sorry. I have said it before and will say it again; Mayweather and/or Manny Pacquiao need to fight the well deserving WBA welterweight king, “ Sugar” Shane Mosley.

A fight with Mosley would guarantee the true boxing aficionado and casual fan alike what is so desperately lacking in this upcoming fight between Mayweather and Marquez- substance, drama, excitement, speed, power, and high profile name recognition. What that translates to is dollars. Serious dollars.

I believe that the best fight out there for Mayweather is not a Mexican great named Marquez that is moving two-weight classes north for a day in the sun with Michigan’s boxing phenom, but rather, a speedy, power boxing sage from Pomona, California named Shane Mosley.

By PAT SHEEHAN
RICKY HATTON is plotting a November comeback — with possible opponents already being sounded out by his management team.
The Hitman has not fought since he was battered to a second-round defeat by Manny Pacquiao in May.
He has yet to make an official announcement about his …

By David A. Avila
Once upon a time Floyd Mayweather Jr. ruled the professional world of prizefighting at the top of the rung. But he retired.
The Las Vegas-based fighter, who temporarily departed 20 months ago as the recognized best fighter in the world Pound for Pound, is back again and this …