By Michael Amakor
March 2013 will forever be remembered in the annals of boxing as we witnessed two sensational fights that became immediate fight of the year candidates, and for good reason.
No one who watched the fight between Timothy Bradley and Ruslan Provodnikov could walk away without being awe struck by the savage display put forward by those two determined combatants and the Rocky Movie moment in the 12th and final round when Bradley beat the count to win the fight and retain his title. Bradley is a well known commodity in boxing, but after the fight you had to wonder about where they hell has Provodnikov been all these years, he is a fighters fighter.
The twittering about that fight had barely subsided before we witnessed 12 magnificent rounds in the brutal rematch between Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios in an evenly contested battle that saw mike Alvarado become the new WBO light welterweight champion and exact sweet revenge against his nemesis. What was amazing after both bouts was that both Bradley and Alvarado conceded that immediate rematches were in order to settle the score.
These brutal bouts of attrition and the sportsmanship displayed afterwards despite all the blood, sweat and tears reminds us all why we love boxing and how noble the sport can be. Stay tuned.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
