Former five division champion and pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather and Japanese kickboxing stalwart Tenshin Nasukawa will be back fighting for New Year’s Eve. They are aiming at knocking each other out next month, even if the match-up is just an exhibition, the fight’s promoter Rizin CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara said.
The fight between Mayweather and Nasukawa, which was advertised earlier this month, was abruptly cancelled due to a misunderstanding as alleged by Mayweather.
“It will be a non-official bout. It won’t be on record. So it’s an exhibition match,” Sakakibara told reporters when interviewed at the Haneda airport in Tokyo during his return from Los Angeles after a meeting with Mayweather.
The promoter said that though it is an exhibition, both fighters will be fighting to knock each other. “But at worst it’s not going to be a sparring session… they will fight aiming to get a knock out. We don’t want people to think this is some half-hearted playing around. [Mayweather] will stand before Tenshin [on] December 31. It’s up to Tenshin whether he can create a miracle,” added Sakakibara as quoted by Boxing Scene.
“We’re going to make it happen. It’s a no-brainer,” Mayweather told TMZ Sports. “It’s going to be a little boxing exhibition.”
Sakakibara revealed that the fight would involve an orthodox boxing style without the use of kicking, to the disadvantage for Nasukawa. The promoter said further details of the rules such as including a decision will be deliberated to be announced later. He also said the contract for the bout remained unchanged and will be the highest paid contract for an exhibition, but he did not mention any amount.
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Manny Pacquiao’s chief trainer Buboy Fernandez is arranging everything for the senator for the start of their training camp for the title defense against Adrien Broner. “I don’t see any problem since he’s fresh from a bout, which lasted for seven rounds. He’d remain in good condition for several months so it would be easy to bring back his fighting stamina,” Fernandez was quoted by The Manila Times.
Fernandez said he can’t make any forecast of the outcome of the fight. He added that they are carefully studying Broner’s moves. “This is a good fight. Both of them have a good chance provided they’re not too confident. We can’t do anything on Broner expressing his opinions [on the outcome] but as for me, it is best to finish the fight first. That’s the only way to find out who’s the better boxer.”
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Two undefeated heavyweights faced each other, and Jarrell Miller (23-0-1, 20 KOs) started rather slowly in the early rounds, but had a fast finish when he knocked out Bogdan Dinu (18-1, 14 KOs) in the fourth round. Last October, Miller destroyed Tomasz Adamek, already showing signs of wear and tear, in just two rounds.
Dinu has stopped his last eight opponents before the fight with Miller, but these opponents were no big names in pro boxing. Dinu was dropped by Miller to the canvas by a solid flurry of punches in the fourth. He was able to get up, but Miller landed another combination that sent Dinu again to the floor and was never able to stand after the full count.
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LeBron James scored a season-high 51 points, hitting 19-of-31 from the field, when the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Miami Heat, 113-97, at the American Airlines Arena, the biggest points ever scored by a Lakers player against the Heat.
James started scoring immediately with 19 points in the first quarter. It was his 12th 50-point game of his career. James so far became the first Lakers player to score 40 or more points more than once since Kobe Bryant retired in 2016. He also went into the record books as the fifth player in NBA history to score a 50-point game for three different teams.
( M. Samaco, philboxing)
