Traing exclusively out of Floyd Mayweather Jr's gym in Las Vegas, Nevada, 18 year old Junior ‘Special Boy’ Saba works with his uncle and trainer Tunde Ajayi.

On first glance at a popular video of pad work on YouTube, you would assume it was Roger Mayweather and Floyd hitting the pads in the rhythmic fashion that they have perfected over the years. But, it is actually Junior and Tunde. It really is uncanny and it clearly works well for the pair as Junior has been creating quite a buzz amongst all the right people.

Names get tossed around in boxing all too often, but it is evident and paramount when you hear the right names being tossed around that you stop and pay attention.

SaddoBoxing caught up with Tunde Ajayi recently, asking about Junior's short amateur stint in the UK: More...

This Saturday night, Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather looks to increase his unbeaten record to 44-0 against Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero.

As much as Mayweather would have you believe that it will be an easy night's work for him, the general consensus is that Guerrero is not going to be a push over. ‘The Ghost’ has not been a push over for anyone in his career…

Apart from that one time he got pushed over by Gamaliel Diaz.

A loss is no bad thing though and he avenged that six months later, stopping Diaz in six rounds. Also that was back in 2005, and if we judge him on his last fight, he looked great.

He went into the fight against, the supposedly up and coming superstar Andre Berto, a total underdog. Guerrero out boxed Berto from start to finish, dropping him in the first and second rounds.

By the fourth, Berto’s eyes were beginning to shut due to the swelling, and Guerrero took the majority points decision.
Guerrero is a slick southpaw who carries moderate power, with a 51% KO ratio, stopping 18 opponents out of 31. He is called the ‘Ghost’ because of how elusive he is, with his nifty footwork and good head movement.

He also carries the good guy image, a deeply religious person who came from adversity to be on top of the world stage, whose out of the ring battles, such as his wife battling with leukemia, have been harder than those inside the ring.

Other than the Berto, names on his record he has beaten include undefeated Selcuk Aydin, brawler Michael Katsidis, wily old dog Joel Casamayor and tough gatekeeper Vincento Escobedo, all talented fighters…not elite…but talented in their own respects. More...

Back in December last year I, wrongly, thought that Miguel Cotto would be too big, too strong, too experienced and generally better in all areas than Austin Trout. As we all now know, Trout won the fight decisively and unanimously.

Trout looked impressive in that victory, he didn’t allow Cotto to put the pressure on him that Cotto was once renowned for. The game plan of ‘stick and move’ was well executed, but let’s not forget the fact that he was dealing with a far from prime Cotto.

However, when Trout faces Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, 41-0-1 with 30 KO’s, on 20th April, he will not have a gutsy warrior who has been through the mill on more than one occasion. Despite the fact that Alvarez has had 41 fights, those 41 fights have all gone his own way.

Trout has a 26-0-0 record with 14 KO’s to his name; Cotto is by far the best scalp he has taken.

Because Alvarez has had everything his own way does not mean he has had it easy. From a family of boxing brothers, he started in the sport at 13 years of age.

After several Mexican amateur championship wins, he turned pro at 16 and since then has built up win after win. Obviously there’s a draw in there too but then, hey, we all have bad days.

Recent victories during last three years over opponents such as Josesito Lopez, Shane Mosley, Kermit Cintron, Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Hatton, Alfonso Gomez, Lovemore N’Dou and Carlos Baldomir, show Alvarez's calibre. More...

Tony ‘The Tiger’ Thompson is a tall, cagey, southpaw counter-puncher whose record is 36-3-0. He has knocked out 24 of those opponents and he himself has been knocked out twice.

Not exactly a shimmering shiny scalp list, but a decent one no-less, consisting of facing Wladimir Klitschko twice and American prospect Chazz Witherspoon. Thompson did of course lose the fights he had with Dr. Steelhammer; the other loss comes early in his career to Eric Kirkland.

At 41, some would say he is coming to the end of his career as a prize-fighter, if you have seen his last outing, which one must judge upon, against said Klitschko , you would say he is well past his best now and therefore makes for quite a frustrating, snooze fest of a fighter.

In general, Thompson will cock that left hand counter of his as if to throw it but at the last minute decide not to as he could probably only throw it convincingly…three times, absolute max, before he has spent himself for the entire round.
A bit harsh?

Ok, the bottom line is since his first loss to Klitschko in 2008, Thompson went on a five bout win streak, all knockouts, against solid enough guys, and in a boxer's latter years, hat’s not bad.

It may just be that his style isn’t best suited to equally tall, very upright, pure boxers who prefer long crisp jabs followed by big booming right hands, boxers who favour keeping their hands as high as their heads and stepping off instead of rolling the shoulder.

That’s a shame for him then as that’s exactly what David Price does.

Price's record of 15-0-0 with 13 KO’s displays that he can punch but that he is also not as experienced as Thompson More...

When Gavin Rees takes on Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner this Saturday in Atlantic City, New Jersey, he really will have a hard night’s work ahead of him.

Rees, 37-1-1 with 18 KO’s, is older, by nine years at 32. He is slower than Broner, both of hand and foot, the numbers say he doesn’t hit as hard, he has a shorter reach by seven inches and let’s be honest…he’s not as talented as Broner in the art of hitting and not getting hit.

As you can see, the record of Rees is not a “perfect” one, although his loss was to Andriy Kotelnik, a well skilled boxer and tough opponent, and his draw was more a technical decision as a head clash occurred with Derry Matthews before the fourth round.

His toughest opponents so far have been…well yeah, Andriy Kotelnik and Souleymane M’baye, from whom he grabbed the WBA light welter title off of back in 2007.

That was a good fight, Rees utilising his own skill set, jumping in with the jab, although he doesn’t want to be doing that against Broner, pounding away at Mbaye’s body to no effect and then fading late in the fight to scrape a narrow victory over a past his best Mbaye.

Then Kotelnik came along and reminded us that there are levels in boxing.

Rees’s best attributes are that he is tough as nails, and can be very aggressive. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes those qualities are all a fighter needs to be a really great fighter.

When Rees puts the pressure on he does get results…at domestic level or at European level, clearly not at world level, he was gassed out late in the fight against Kotelnik and that was five years ago…against an opponent that acts as a gatekeeper for world honours. More...

Tonight, Brian Magee, 36-4-1 (25), takes on the “Viking Warrior” Mikkel Kessler, 45-2 (34), in Denmark, in defence of his WBA Super Middleweight title at 168 lbs.

One has to admire Magee; over the years he has fought good, solid opponents and worked his way up the rankings the old fashioned way.

Few would have thought that after losses to Robin Reid in 2004, Vitali Tyspko in 2005, a stoppage against Carl Froch in 2006 and a draw against Tony Oakey in 2007, that he would go on to challenge Lucian Bute last year for the IBF belt, and be in the situation he is in now.

A tough, experienced southpaw with a 60% KO ratio, he can, and has, given some of the best super middles in the world, some really hard nights.

In 2011, when the chance came to fight Lucian Bute in Quebec, Canada for the IBF belt, he jumped at it. Albeit he was stopped in the tenth round, which looked to me like an unfair stoppage.

Magee had not been down and was still in the fight when Bute caught him with a lovely uppercut as Magee came inside, great shot. Magee fell on his hands and knees, and the referee just waved it off, no count, nothing (?). He still made Bute work hard.

Magee followed that loss up with a win over Jaime Barboza in San Jose, Costa Rica which earned him the interim WBA belt which he then successfully defended in Denmark against Rudy Markussen.

Kessler is slightly different in that, well, he’s better than anyone else Magee has faced, but in Kessler’s last fight, against Allan Green, he was dropped in the first and looked shaky, before rallying and knocking Green out cold in the fourth. This was a new element in Kessler’s make up; he could be hurt. More...

Miguel Cotto has never lost at Madison Square Garden; he will be back there for the eighth time in his career tonight when he faces off against undefeated Austin Trout, who currently holds the WBA light middleweight title.

The Garden is Cotto’s home, they love him there as the venue has been the site of Cotto's impressive victories over established names like Shane Mosley and Zab Judah or emotional reprisals against Antonio Margarito and Muhammad Abdullaev.

It also has been the setting for a brief, mandatory warm up against Michael Jennings and a potential banana skin, Joshua Clottey, who proceeded to slice Cotto’s eye up. One thing is for sure, Madison Square Garden or not, Cotto always gives plenty of excitement.

Cotto’s resume reads very well, at 37-3-0 with 30 KO’s. His movements up the weights, from Junior Welterweight to Welter to Light Middle have suited him down to the ground.

Apart from the names already mentioned, dangerous punchers Randall Bailey and Demarcus Corley were both stopped. Cotto has stolen the 0’s off of Carlos Maussa, Kelson Pinto, Ricardo Torres, Paul Malignaggi, Carlos Quintana and Yuri Foreman.

His three losses were to Floyd Mayweather Jr, Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito…but that last one doesn’t count; surely no-one counts the first Margarito fight?

So with that in mind, losing to the two best fighters on the planet is no embarrassment.

Even with the Margarito loss, it was a brilliant, brutal affair. Cotto always goes to war, even though he has oodles of skill and bags of talent. More...

This Saturday sees the much debated return of Ricky ‘The Hitman’ Hatton as he faces tough, but limited Ukrainian, former WBA welterweight champion Vyacheslav Senchenko.

Senchenko, 32-1-0 with 21 KO’s, is a relatively one dimensional fighter, loves to work off the jab, has decent but not destructive power, and is tough.

Anyone who has seen his record will now be screaming that he got stopped by "Old Feather Fist", Paulie Malignaggi, who relived Senchenko of the WBA belt in Donetsk this past April.

The fight was stopped due to Senchenko’s eye being grossly swollen, with him unable to see any shots that were coming his way. The ref did the fair thing, and I don’t believe Senchenko was hurt as such.

Malignaggi could tag him all night, with ease, because Malignaggi is underrated as a fighter and skillful at what he does.
The question I would ask in that scenario is -‘Who is better at hitting and not getting hit…Malignaggi or Hatton?’
You know the answer, whether you like it or not.

That is no bad thing though; you will always get more value for money with Hatton. He won’t move like Malignaggi, but he shouldn’t need to…well…he never used to.

Hatton, in his prime, was great to watch and a great fighter. He was ferocious and unrelenting, the way he could turn on a sixpence on the inside and deliver staggering body shots was a thing to behold.

It is safe to say, however, that Ricky Hatton is not in his prime anymore. What he has in advantages here is experience…at an entire different level than Senchenko, who has fought just twice outside Ukraine, and nowhere like Manchester Echo Arena when Hatton is fighting. More...

Nishioka, 39-4-3, with 24 KO’s, will be putting his WBC super-bantamweight title, the belt he has held since the beginning of 2009, on the line whilst Donaire, 29-1-0 with 18 KO’s, will be adding his recently acquired WBO and IBF belts to the table.

Donaire has spent the past five years moving up through the weight divisions, from flyweight to super flyweight, super flyweight to bantam, bantam to super bantam, winning belts in each weight division, he has beat

Donaire is a great fighter, well-schooled and an excellent mover, he can punch, he is tough and likes a bit of a tear up now and again, he’s great to watch and his counter left hook is a screamer.

His last four or five fights have been against good opposition, better than good, excellent in fact. He struggled slightly with Wilfredo Vazquez Jr, going the distance, but he still got the win and dropped Vazquez in the ninth.

Nishioka is a very experienced super bantam; this will be his eighth defence of his belt.

A quick southpaw that can be in and out like a shot, Rafael Marquez had trouble tagging him with anything hurtful and Marquez is no mug.

Rendall Munroe also had a crack but couldn’t put any hurt on him. Nishioka, like Donaire, is also very good at doing what he does but unlike Donaire, he has his game plan and he sticks to it, good luck trying to get Nishioka involved in an all-out war.

He will try and make Donaire think he wants to trade and then he will move out of range before anything comes in return…unless he thinks he hurts you, and then he fires on all cylinders! More...

Audley Harrison, 28-5-0, takes on upcoming undefeated heavyweight prospect David Price, 13-0-0, at the Echo Arena, Liverpool tonight.

On paper it may look a tad one sided in terms of numbers and experience but Price is looking impressive at the moment, he has steamed through some solid domestic opposition.

He is now the British and Commonwealth champion, and now looks to defend said belts against Harrison.

I have said this a few times before, as has Harrison, but this could very well be his last chance…no really.

The problem with Harrison is that he is a talented fighter, but he never really made the switch from amateur to pro, that’s why we saw him look his best when he won Prize-fighter as its 3 minute 3 round format probably suited him.

You could go on and on about Audley's career so I will stick to recent performances, which is as much for your benefit as it is for my sanity.

In his last three outings he went 2-1 with Ali Adams, David Haye and Michael Sprott.

The Haye fiasco was a shocker. It made all the news, the man who said repeatedly ‘Yes I Can’…couldn’t, in fact he didn’t even try, with the British Board Of Boxing Control debating on whether to give him his purse, as throwing one punch for three rounds doesn’t really constitute a Boxing match.

The Sprott fight Harrison was losing on all cards, until he pulled a wonder-punch from out of the bag and KO’d Sprott late in the 12th round, fair-doos, it was a good shot and at least that was some vengeance for Sprott knocking out Harrison earlier in his career...but it was just Michael Sprott. More...

A weekend of upsets then, well almost, can one count the stoppage of former Iron chinned Chisora an upset? Yeah, I’ll take that.

Personally, going into the Haye vs. Chisora fight, I thought the same as other scribes and fans alike, “well it is going two ways, Haye is going to outbox Chisora for twelve or Chisora will grind out a victory late in the fight”

Very surprised that Dereck was KO’d, almost as surprised as the fact that Chisora showed good sportsmanship and didn’t throw a stool in the ring or threaten to cut/stab or burn someone up.

Haye looked good though, and is looking for the Vitali fight, which holds lots of money and big acclaim. He will only get the elder Klitschko if Vitali comes through Manuel Charr (21-0-0, 11ko’s).
Vitali vs. Haye should likely come off then.

Amir Khan, on the other hand looked good for two rounds Saturday night before being annihilated at the hands of Danny Garcia, who timed him beautifully onto a huge left hook.

Sky Sports pundits picked up on Khan not looking so good in sparring when they showed him going toe-to-toe with…someone?...in a session before the fight, and…someone?...was landing heavily with the left hook and putting hands all over Khan.

What are you doing? Thought I.

I hope you do not fight that fight Saturday, and why are you taking advice from a former 400m hurdler with regard to boxing? And then he said exactly what we were all thinking “Don’t get wild” More...

Several junior welter world titles are on the line tonight as WBC champ Danny Garcia meets WBA king Amir Khan at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV.

This fight is a result of Lamont Peterson reportedly failing a medical test prior to the rematch from his clash with Amir Khan in December of last year. In that bout, Khan was pushed very hard by a relentless Peterson who looked like he could walk through Khan’s shots.

Khan lost on points in a close fight.

Without commenting on the failed medical, it is hard to sum up the first fight. was Peterson stronger because he was on something? Or did he realise in the middle rounds that he had taken Khan’s best shots and was still standing? In my eyes, on the night, you couldn’t have argued with it going either way, it was that close, and not forgetting an entertaining fight.
Regardless, the WBA have reinstated Khan as the champion following the failed medical test so Khan goes in as a champion as well as Garcia Saturday Night.

The Ring Junior Welterweight title is on the line as well, so, all in all, three championship belts are up for grabs.

Garcia’s record stands at 23-0-0 with 14 KO’s. He is a fundamentally sound boxer/puncher who has looked good in his climb through the rankings. He has beaten the likes of Nate Campbell, Kendall Holt and Erik Morales; the Morales win earning him the WBC belt.

If you look deeper at those wins, one may argue that these fighters are shadows of their former selves. But Campbell can still be a tricky operator; as can Holt and Morales…well it's Erik Morales, who proved he had something left in the tank when he fought Marcos Rene Maidana, although Garcia may have drained away whatever was remaining. More...

Vinny Maddalone read the script and played the role perfectly Tyson Fury on Saturday night; the journeyman turned up, got hit a great deal and was stopped by the referee in five.

Tough and compact slugger Maddalone didn’t really throw anything Fury’s way that troubled the bigger man. Fury had a reach advantage and was seven inches taller than Maddalone; he was faster, had better footwork and was the boss for as long as it lasted.

And quite right too.

Fury should be beating these types of opponents, really, he should be looking to fight David Price, that’s the fight that the public want to see.

This fight didn’t show anything we haven’t already come to expect from Fury, at least in his last outing against Martin Rogan he fought as a southpaw the five rounds it lasted.

Rogan and Maddalone are very similar fighters, as are the rest of the boxers on Fury's resume. The one outing against Dereck Chisora was good to see. He was in against someone who offered some opposition and as hard as Fury punches, he never troubled Chisora and it looked like he had to work a bit harder than usual to get the decision win.

Maddalone did most of his defensive work with his face, as he plodded forward into stiff jabs and long right hands. Fury moved well, and held when he needed to but by the same token, Maddalone didn’t throw much to move out of the way of and looked happy for the respite that came from the holding. More...

Nonito Donaire is looking to defend his WBO super bantam belt and take Jeffrey Mathebula’s IBF belt, at the Home Depot Centre this Saturday night.

Donaire has looked very impressive in his movements through the weights from flyweight, super flyweight, bantam and super bantam, winning titles in all four divisions, notably making himself only the second Asian to win titles in four divisions, the first being Manny Pacquiao.

An accomplished amateur before turning over to the pro rankings, whilst picking up titles at flyweight such as the WBO Asia Pacific title and the NABF super flyweight title, Donaire didn’t explode onto the scene until July 2007, when, as a 7-1 underdog, he walked the then undefeated Vic Darchinyan onto a perfect counter left hook and took him out.

With this shocking victory, Donaire earned Ring Magazine’s Knockout of the Year and Upset of the Year awards along with the IBF flyweight belt.

Since then, Donaire has gone from strength to strength and seems to be holding the weight well as he has grown into what Top Rank Management will, no doubt, soon herald as the new Pac Man.

At 28-1-0 with 18 KO’s, he has sailed through some quality opposition along the way such as Hernan Marquez, Fernando Montiel, Omar Narvaez, and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr.

Donaire is a great boxing technician, a powerful, fast counter puncher who can switch hit; in the ring he looks every bit the star. His knockout of Montiel earned Donaire another Knockout of the Year award, again with the counter left hook.

That left hook of Donaire’s is a formidable weapon; generally if he connects with it he really shakes things up. He can load up on it so quickly and is also a good finisher. More...

Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, 45-0-1 (31), makes the makes the third defence of his WBC middleweight title against 28-year-old southpaw challenger Andy Lee, 28-1-0 with 20 KO’s, tonight at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, TX.

Chavez Jr will always be in the quite considerable sized shadow of his father, former three weight world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Sr, and for some, will always be just a namesake and a ticket puller.

Here, he has his chance to show he is not just a famous name, that he does belong at world level, that it was not just clever matchmaking and favouritism that got him the title.

There are some good attributes Chavez Jr has inherited from his father though; He likes a good tear up and he is a tough kid.

Never have we really seen Chavez Jr in trouble, even though he is there to be hit. A defensive wizard Jr is not, nor is he a huge puncher. He can punch but he is not a concussive slugger, more like an accumulative puncher.

He will wade into range looking to throw combinations downstairs and up, brushing off any counters that come his way…but then who has he been in with that could punish him? Marco Antonio Rubio was probably his hardest test to date; Rubio is the hardest hitter Chavez Jr has faced and the most experienced.

Jr won by unanimous decision, but Rubio, as game as he was, never really turned it up.

Tenacity, like his father, but if Chavez Jr had his old man’s level of tenacity and aggression, I think we would have a much more exciting fighter in Chavez Jr, not one that extends just to the Mexican massive. More...