Sherdog Boxing: The Weekly Wrap

A 16-year-old Tenshin Nasukawa watches Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao #RIZIN14 pic.twitter.com/LDy77FAP7V

— Bestrafer7 (@Bestrafer7) December 1, 2018

Teofimo Lopez Faces Diego Magdaleno on Feb. 2

Fresh off of his brutal one punch knockout victory over Mason Menard, Sports Illustrated’s Prospect of the Year Teofimo Lopez, will take a huge step up in competition when he faces Diego Magdaleno. Magdaleno is a 30-2 former NABF Super featherweight Titleist. The fight will be on the ESPN+ undercard of the Eleider “Storm” Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev rematch.

Lopez’s reasoning for taking the fight shows much confidence the 21-year-old has in himself. Lopez reportedly wanted to fight a southpaw because he thinks he will eventually be fighting Vasyl Lomachenko and wants the professional experience against a left-handed fighter. That’s both cocky, and to some degree highly praising of how long he thinks Lomachenko will remain champion. We’ll see if he can continue to back up that attitude, and SI’s hype, facing a big step up in competition.

Gervonta Davis Fights Abner Mares Feb. 9 on Showtime

While he continues to fight on twitter with Tevin Farmer, this week the fight between Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Abner Mares was finalized for Feb. 9 on Showtime. Mares will be moving up from featherweight after losing to Leo Santa Cruz in June which does not bode well for how he will do against the naturally larger “Tank.” This isn’t the Gervonta Davis fight everybody wants to see (it’s not in the top five, honestly) but it’s a decent fight on premium cable.

Amir Khan Accuses Kell Brook of Being a Closeted Homosexual

In a disgusting display, this week Amir Khan said that he has heard rumors that Kell Brook is gay, and that if he was a real man he would come out and admit it. Worse, Khan claimed that the reason Kell Brook was stabbed with a machete while on vacation in 2014 was that he “tried it on with some poor guy.” For the record, Kell Brook is married and has two children, while Amir Khan was caught flirting online with a transgender model to whom he called his own wife “irrelevant.”

Luckily for us, this fight is rumored to be happening in England next summer, with negotiations supposedly almost done. Let’s hope the talk doesn’t get any uglier, lest the mainstream sports media catch wind of what terrible places the trash talk has gone.

Tenshin Nasukawa Claims He’s Thinking About Kicking Floyd Mayweather

Ahead of their three-round boxing exhibition, Japan’s Tenshin Nasukawa said this week that Floyd Mayweather “says such provocative stuff, I feel like kicking him.” There’s an interesting video floating around boxing Twitter that shows Tenshin watching the Mayweather-Pacquiao match as a sixteen year old, and declaring “this stance makes me want to leg kick so bad” while also acknowledging how skilled both combatants are. However, if anybody thinks a rule breach is coming from Tenshin, understand this will never happen.

The exact same ideas came about when Floyd was going to fight Conor McGregor: McGregor was going to knock him out with a kick, McGregor was going to take him down, McGregor was going to do something entertaining, and we all know none of that happened. Because it is a three-round exhibition, Tenshin might put a leg up to Floyd’s head and stop it like he’s Jean Claude Van Damme, then Floyd will laugh and they’ll both hug because they’re both making so much money. That’s the most excitement you’re going to get from this bout.

Adonis Stevenson Remains in Coma, Not Improving

While the mainstream sports world seemed to forget the Adonis Stevenson story once it looked like he wasn’t going to die, Adonis Stevenson is still not doing very well. In fact, this week his promoter came out and said that he is still unconscious, still needs ventilation to breathe, and has not improved since he was first admitted to the hospital. If Stevenson had died, mainstream sports media would have never stopped talking about it. It’s a shame that they seem to have now, and an indictment on how little the sports world seems to care about athletes who can’t be martyred and are only permanently damaged from their sport.

62-Year-Old Boxer Looks to Fight in Michigan Golden Gloves

A 62-year-old Michigan man named Fred Belshaw used to train at Kronk Gym when he was a teenager, sparring with guys like Tommy Hearns under the tutelage of Emanuel Steward. But, after joining the military at a young age he never had the chance to see how far he could have made it as a boxer. So, after training for about a year and a half, the 62 year old is entering the Western Michigan Golden Gloves Tournament in the 185-pound division. Right now, this is a feel-good story about never being too old to chase your dreams. Let’s hope it doesn’t become a warning about why old men should stick to Harley’s and 22-year-old girlfriends for their midlife crises.

Miami Boxing Gym Helps Inventor of Rope-a-Dope

And finally, this week a Miami boxing gym began raising money to help Levi Forte’s wife return his ashes to Alabama, as he wanted. Forte was a sparring partner of Muhammad Ali, and once went the distance with George Foreman. Supposedly, it was Forte that first adopted the rope-a-dope which allowed him to survive against Foreman, and he was the one to give the idea to Ali before their famous fight in Zaire. Because everybody loves Ali and his not being the innovator of the rope-a-dope would hurt his legend, not many people want to believe or acknowledge Forte’s story. Still, whether it’s true or not, it’s nice to see current boxers acknowledging a man who, though he isn’t, maybe should be a legend in boxing lore.