**** Kirk's ESB Championships 2011 ****

BigBone where's your picks

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"09/21 - Anthony Mundine vs. Rigoberto Alvarez - Interim WBA Light Middleweight title"
:yikes...
...:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl:rofl...... :bloodYou have to be kidding me...


I want this to happen:

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...I'm not even going to make a pick.

"Interim WBA Light Middleweight title" indeed. :bart

 

Dimitrenko UD
Nongqayi UD
Martinez UD
Hernandez TKO
Mabuza UD
Pirog TKO

 

Svenn "Hände aus Stein" Ottke > Hagfro

 

Alexander Dimitrenko TKO
Jorge Arce TKO
Martinez TKO
Hernandez TKO
Mambuza UD
Pirog TKO

 

quite a sweet ko by ottke in the one fight he looked certain to lose.

 

Dimitrenko tko. Arce tko. Martinez tko. Hernandrz tko. Mabuza ud. Pirog ud.

 

Mundine-Alvarez was postponed to October 19th when Mundine suffered a cut in sparring.

 

U think Simphiwe can really win again? Sadly I'm nt a patriotic as I shuld b...

 

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Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Michael Sprott- Alexander Dimitrenko by KO
Simphiwe Nongqayi vs Jorge Arce II- Jorge Arce by UD
Adrian Hernandez vs. Gideon Buthelezi- Adrian Hernandez by KO
Chris van Heerden vs. Kaizer Mabuza- Chris van Heerden by UD
Gennady Martirosyan vs. Dmitry Pirog- Dmitry Pirog by KO

Everybody around the world is still talking about last weeks' boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz. What is in store for us this week? Well, nothing explosive. We have a solid group of fights, but it's nothing wowing and really captures everybody's attention. And while I'm on the subject why oh why did HBO not have the Sergio Martinez-Darren Barker fight this week? I don't get why the big heads at HBO didn't have the Martinez fight right after the Mayweather-Ortiz fight. This matters because it would be a great way to showcase who Sergio Martinez is to people that may have not have seen him that would have seen him during the Mayweather-Ortiz replay. Instead, all HBO is going to show is the rerun of the fight. No live fight. This is yet another terrible decision by HBO, but let's not get into that. Let's talk about this week of fights.

Alexander Dimitrenko, the tall German is taking on the journeyman Michael Sprott. Dimitrenko has a very good record, and is tall and has pretty good power, but I don't see him as a legit threat. I don't even rate him as a top 10 Heavyweight. Dimitrenko is very weak physically and mentally. When the going gets tough he folds and has no answers. His big name on his resume is Eddie Chambers and Chambers destroyed Dimitrenko. Dimitrenko's other name fighter is Albert Sosnowski, who is a nice journeyman fighter, but he was having difficulty with him too, before knocking him out a very tired Sosnowski. He's taking on Michael Sprott who is a journeyman, but is very very long in the tooth. His last great moment was winning the prizefighter...eh, and beating on Audley Harrison before getting knocked out in the last round. Since that fight he hasn't gone more than 4 rounds. So, with that, I have to think Sprott really isn't in it anymore and Dimitrenko will stop Sprott sometime in this fight. Again, I don't think highly of Dimitrenko, but Sprott is chinny, old, and he may'be just coming in for a paycheck. And even if he actually does manage to beat on Dimitrenko...he isn't winning a decision in Germany. Dimitrenko wins this fight guaranteed and I see him stopping Sprott.

Adrian Hernandez is taking on Gideon Buthelezi. Hernandez is now a belt holder at 108 after beating Gilberto Keb Baas in a rematch and it was a very entertaining fight. Hernandez just had too much skill, and is a great worker to the body. Very accurate and very powerful. Hernandez is a lot like other Mexican fighters, great body work and comes forward quite wild and wide, but it gets the job down. Gideon Buthelzi is a bit of a slick southpaw, very accurate puncher that has very good boxing ability. He can be slick and can fight off the back foot. He did a lot of that in his last fight against Budler where he frustrated Budler with nice sharp punching and movement. It was a razor thin fight though, one where he won by SD. And a lot of could be influenced because he does fight off the back foot and he looks to be a counter puncher rather than a straight up, in the pocket, banger. I think this definitely has the potential to be a very entertaining fight. It's one of those bull versus the matador type fight. Hernandez will be coming, using his strength and power to beat Buthelezi and Buthelezy will look to use his speed, and counter punching ability to outpoint Adrian Hernandez. There is a problem there though. This fight is in Mexico and it will be tough for Buthelezi to win this fight on the cards. I don't think though this fight will go to the cards. I think Buthelezi is too green, and this moment is too big for him at this time. Him on the road, and fighting a tough fighter like Hernandez is just a very tall and tough task. I think Buthelezi gives a good effort and puts on a good show, but he gets stopped in the mid to may'be late rounds. Hernandez' body work will be devastating and that will definitely knock the wind out of Buthelezi's sails. Hernandez via stoppage.

Now, let's talk about the Simphiwe Nongqayi-Jorge Arce rematch. Who says a counter puncher, that boxes off the back foot can't win in Mexico. This is rematch of just a little over 2 years ago now. When they fought a little over two years ago Simphiwe Nongqayi made Arce looked old, slow, and just really outboxed him badly. At that point it looked as though Arce was on the way out. Early that year, in 2009, he was dominated and beat up by Vic Darchinyan. The new year would be good for Arce though as he would fight one last time at 115 (picked up a world title belt...for whatever that's worth) moved up to the 122 division (fighting around 120ish though) and during that tiem he went 5-0-1. Pretty good, and he would be rewarded by getting a shot at the undefeated belt holder Wilfredo Vazquez Jr on the Pacquiao-Mosley undercard, and they both ended up stealing the show. The Mexico-Puerto Rico rivalry would produce yet another classic with Jorge Arce fighting like a madman and getting Vazquez out of there in the last round, in a close fight. The opposite has happened to Simphiwe Nongqayi since his biggest win. After he beat Arce and won a world title belt in the process. He went to France, and ended up with a draw. Went back down to Mexico and got knocked out in 6. It's been a tough road since the Arce victory and this will be his first fight since getting knocked out, and that was almost 14 months ago now. Nongqayi looks to resurrect his career by beating Arce yet again. The two big questions though is, concerning Arce, was the Vazquez victory his last hurrah? And for Nongqayi was his win over Arce his peak win and will his career continue to go down hill? That's what makes this fight intriguing. I think Arce is in a great state of mind and he really is catching a second wind in his career. I think his momentum continues and he avenges his loss and wins a decision. I don't think Arce will stop Nongqayi because, if he is motivated, he is a very durable and tough fighter. He gets in that shell, keeps his distance and starts outboxing you....ah, dang, this could turn out to be exactly like the first fight, but I just got a hunch Arce wins this fight. Winning two on the road is tough, I don't know if Nongqayi will be able to do it. I say Arce by close UD.

Chris van Heerden-Kaizer Mabuza this is a very good fight down in South Africa, which is quitely becoming a very good place for boxing. Quite a few up and coming fighters from down there that I believe will start making noise in the next couple of years. Isaac Chilemba, Thomas Oosthuizen, Nkosinathi Joyi, all very good fighters, and I believe Chris van Heerden will be in that class as well. He is a very talented 147 fighter, southpaw. Very slick, nice jab, fights off thee back foot. He really is talented, and has shown good skills against his opposition thus far. Now, he is stepping up in class against Kaizer Mabuza, but it is a good step up in class. Not too difficult, but someone that may push him a bit. Mabuza made noise when he made Kendall Holt quit and had a shot at a 140 title against Zab Judah, but came up short. Mabuza is quite crude, comes forward, and has good power. We will see how good Heerden really is, but I think he is the real deal. I see him outboxing Mabuza all the way to the finish line losing just a couple of rounds. He has been the full 12 distance before so mentally and physically it won't be a problem for him. So, I look for a great fight out of van Heerden, and also, it is worth noting Mabuza is coming up in weight again and Heerden is a natural 147 fighter. All signs point toward a van Heerden victory and I think he does win via UD.

This fight isn't on the list, but it should be, is the Vicente Escobedo-Rocky Juarez fight. This is probably the fight this week that is pretty close to a toss up this weekend. Both fighters are very much on a downward spiral and both need wins very very badly. Escobedo, since the Katsidis fight, is 2-2. that's a tune up after the Katsidis win and his most recent victory was against Walter Estrada, which he looked very bad. If that's not bad enough, Juarez is even worse. His last 4 fights have all been losses. If we include the fights since tje Juand Manuel Marquez fight 1-5-1. And as we all know, the Chris John draw was very generous in favor of Rocky Juarez. He could very easily be 1-6. His last fight was against Alejandro Sanabria....let that sink in for awhile. Alejandro Sanabria. Now, no disrespect to Sanabria, he may turn out to be a world beater, but at this time he has a very glossy record with no notable wins...not including the Juarez victory. So, may'be he turns out to be a good fighter, but at the moment, we don't know and Juarez looks really bad at this time. So, this is a fight between used to be good fighters that are soon becoming journeyman. One can even argue that Juarez already is a journeyman and is a stepping stone for young fighters. This fight is at 130, a weight Escobedo hasn't fought at since 2007. So, that's very intriguing, so you know, we'll see what happens. I would take Escobedo by unanimous decision.

 

This technically isn't this week, but Dmitry Pirog is fighting on Sunday. So, we'll do this fight as well. It's a bit of a shame that Pirog hasn't fought more since his great 5th round knockout of Danny Jacobs in the States last year. He has only made one defense of his belt against and that was to Javier Francisco Maciel. Maciel gave him a much tougher fight than expected. Pirog looked off. He definitely wasn't sharp and looked slow. He may have celebrated his Jacobs win for too long considering he did take 9 months off after the fact and didn't look good against Maciel. Now, he is taking on Gennady Martirosyan. Martirosyan definitely doesn't have a resume, and don't exactly know what he has done to earn a title shot, but whatever the case, he is getting a shot and he'll try and make the most of it. His only claim to fame is getting stopped by one of the better 160 fighters in Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam. I think Pirog looks a lot better than he did against Maciel. Knowing that he does have another big money fight on the horizon. I definitely think Pirog will be sharp, accurate and stop the tough, but chinny Martirosyan in the mid rounds or so.

Again, this isn't a bad week by any means, it's just after all this buzz there needed to be a big fight on HBO or Showtime, really on HBO because they are showing the rerun of the Mayweather-Ortiz fight. I still don't know why they couldn't move Martinez-Barker a week earlier. It would be better for HBO and boxing to showcase one of the top fighters in boxing. And perhaps, very much a longshot though, a potential Mayweather opponent.

 

Alexander Dimitrenko TKO
Jorge Arce TKO
Martinez TKO
Hernandez TKO
Mambuza UD
Pirog TKO

 

Kirk changing my pick to Pirog TKO

Cheers

 

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09/24 - Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Michael Sprott - EBU Heavyweight title

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09/24 - Jorge Arce vs. Simphiwe Nongqayi - WBO Super Bantamweight title

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09/24 - Raul Martinez vs. Rodrigo Guerrero - IBF Super Flyweight title

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09/24 - Adrian Hernandez vs. Gideon Buthelezi - WBC Light Flyweight title

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09/24 - Chris van Heerden vs. Kaizer Mabuza - IBO Welterweight title

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09/25 - Gennady Martirosyan vs. Dmitry Pirog - WBO Middleweight title

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Dimitrenko KO, Arce TKO, Martinez UD, Hernandez TKO, van Heerden UD, Pirog KO

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