Boxing News

The Road Toward the Golden Gloves and Beyond

Golden Glove and Junior Olympic hopefuls tuned up at a local show at the Palm Bay Recreational Center in Palm Bay, Florida on Saturday. Over 100 boxers registered and a total of 21 bouts were put on for an excited and raucous audience. "It's a very good turnout," said Robert Nicholson, Registration Chairman of the Florida Association of USA Boxing. "It's going to be a very entertaining show."

While it wasn't possible to match up the huge number of fighters, the fights that were scheduled were entertaining crowd pleasers. The show started with a lucky red corner, where the first five bouts were won by the fighter from that corner. Among those were little eleven year old, 70lb pound Joshua Pagan and Ariel Vega, who came out swinging from the bell. The tiny tykes threw big bombs during the match, which hyped up the crowd. In the end, Pagan, representing Positive Progress Boxing Club, won by decision.

Another early bout featured Edwin Normandia of Palm Bay Boxing Club and Sonny Duversonne of Manatee PAL. In a contest that deviated from the usual sloppy haymaker amateur match, these two fighters came out measuring each other with straight jabs followed by crisp right hands. In the second round, Normandia hurt Duversonne with a right hand and nearly sent him to the canvas on the way to winning a decision. More...

Full of confidence and armed with a pair of lightning quick hands, Paul Malignaggi is looking to move up the ladder in the talent rich 140 pound division, yearning for a chance to pull away from the deep pool of fighters. However, in light of a certain opponent, Malignaggi might as well be looking toward the Moon. And that opponent is none other than Puerto Rican star and undefeated WBO champion, Miguel Angel Cotto.

Coming off an easy win against Donald Camarena, the speed of Malignaggi seems like it would give a slower stalker like Cotto trouble, but the Italian - American fighter's victory was an overrated one. Camarena was extremely inactive in the fight, refusing to throw more than a handful of punches for much of the bout and merely walking forward, chasing the faster Malignaggi around the ring like a dog following its owner.

Camarena committed one of the cardinal sins of boxing: chasing an opponent. Instead of cutting off the ring, going to the body and smothering the opponent's punches, tactics used by effective pressure fighters, Camarena did everything opposite of that and instead chased, headhunted and tried to counter his faster adversary. When Camarena threw the rare punch, he was countered by several from Malignaggi. Ali once called Foreman "the mummy", well in the Malignaggi-Camarena contest, the latter boxer certainly fit the description. More...