Boxing Ibf

Russian-born Robert Stieglitz will defend his WBO super middleweight (168 pounds) title against hard-punching Puerto Rican, Edison Miranda, on Jan. 9 in Bordelandhalle, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

Stieglitz, 28, earned the title in his last bout, when he dethroned previously unbeaten Hungarian-born southpaw Karoly Balzsay (21-1, 15 knockouts) with an 11th-round stoppage.

In victory, Stieglitz (36-2, 22 KOs) scored his fifth straight win, and his third knockout during that run.

Cuban-born and former Olympic gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa will put his WBA featherweight title on the line against Tanzanian, Rogers Mtagwa, on Jan. 23 in the WaMu Theater at New York's Madison Square Garden in a clash of 126-pounders.

The 27-year-old Gamboa rose to 16-0 with the 14th knockout of his career on Oct. 10, when he stopped Whyber Garcia (22-7, 15 KOs) at the WaMu Theater.

Negotiations for the mega-bout between Floyd "Money" Mayweather and Manny "Pac-Man" Pacquiao have been ongoing, with Golden Boy promotions' Richard Schaefer and Top Rank's Bob Arum representing each of the fighters considered pound-for-pound boxing's best, according to a source close to the process.

Romanian-born, left-hander, Lucian Bute, may have retained his IBF super middleweight title against Mexcan-born, Librado Andrade, 13 months ago, due as much to a referee's decision as to his own admirable bravery in surviving a near-final round knockout before a partisan crowd of more than 70,000 at Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

And when Bute (24-0, 19 knockouts) rematches Andrade (28-2, 21 KOs) in Pepsi Coliseum, Quebec City, Quebec, in Saturday night's HBO-televised bout, Steve Farhood will be watching with interest on television rather than from ringside as he did last October.

"I think that a mandated rematch was appropriate," said Farhood, a Showtime boxing analyst who called the match alongside Nick Charles. "With that said, it's difficult to imagine Andrade finishing the job this time -- but he deserves the chance."

Andrade was 24-1 with 18 knockouts, his lone defeat having come by decision againsts former WBA king former Mikkel Kessler when he faced Bute, who will be making the fifth defense of a crown he earned with an 11th-round knockout of Alejandro Berrio in October of 2007, and who is coming off of March's fourth-round technical knockout of Fulgencio Zuniga.

And until Bute hit what appeared to be a wall -- emotional, physical, mental, or otherwise -- Bute had been comfortably ahead against Andrade with no reason for any of his partisan fans not to believe that their champion wasn't going to coast to an easy victory.

The past, nearly 10 months have been anything but joyous for Kelly Pavlik, the WBO and WBC middlewieght champion.

A native of blue collar Youngstown, Ohio, Pavlik was hailed as perhaps the sport's next matinee idol when he bravely rose from being floored and nearly knocked out in the second round of his seventh-round stoppage of previously, unbeaten and undisputed middleweight champion, Jermain Taylor.

But Pavik has recently endured questions about his courage from those in Youngstown and abroad -- even as he said that he survived a near-death experience that resulted from a staph infection in his left forefinger which forced the cancellation of a Dec. 5 title defense against talented Paul Williams (37-1, 27 knockouts).

"We weren't surprised. This is really the fourth time, now, so this fight will never take place," said Williams' trainer and manager, George Peterson, to FanHouse on Oct. 21.

"We're going to move on," said Peterson. "There's is no injury. He [Pavlik] just needs a heart transplant."

Paul 'The Punisher' Williams is not only tall, rangy and talented, but the two-time welterweight and one-time junior middleweight champion appears to have an endless reserve of energy that allows him to throw punches forever and at a high rate.

In his most recent victory over former world champion Winky Wright, Williams threw 1,086 punches -- an average of 91 punches per round that far exceeds the middleweight average of 51 per round.

George Peterson claims not to know why Paul "The Punisher" Williams is among the most feared boxers in the sport.

And then he gives a perfect argument as to why.

"Walter Mathese was 25 fights with 24 knockouts. Nobody wanted to fight him. Paul fought him and stopped him. Antonio Margarito was most feared. Nobody wanted to fight him. Paul got in there and beat the breaks off of him. Then it was Winky Wright. This goes on and on," said Peterson, Williams manager and trainer.

"Paul will fight anybody from 147-to-160 right now -- whether it's Manny Pacquiao, or Miguel Cotto, or Andre Berto, or Shane Mosley. It doesn't matter," said Peterson. "I can't understand why everyone calls everyone else out, but nobody calls out Paul Williams. All that we want to do is to get their butts into the ring."

A two-time welterweight and one-time junior middleweight champion, Williams (37-1, 27 knockouts) will take on Sergio Martinez (44-1, 24 KOs) in a Dec. 5, nontitle middleweight (160 pounds) clash of southpaws in Atlantic City.

For Oleg Maskaev to be in contention for a heavyweight world title is incredible considering the obstacles he has overcome both in and out of the ring.

There was his near-death experience as a 16-year-old coal miner in his native Zhambul, Kazakhstan, and the fact that only his budding, amateur boxing career saved the former Soviet leutenant from being sent into the war in Afganistan.

Knocked out in all of his six losses, Maskaev overcame a suspect chin to earn his biggest career wins -- two knockouts of former world champ, Hasim Rahman, with the second earning him a brief stint as WBC champion.

Maskaev says that he suffered a broken right elbow during the rematch with Rahman, an injury he endured during a subsequent win over Peter Okhello, as well as in a loss to Samuel Peter.

But now, Maskaev (36-6, 27 knockouts), who turns 41 in March, finds himself, yet again, on the verge of title contention.

For with a Dec. 11 victory over Dominican-born, Nagy Aguilera (14-2, nine KOs), Maskaev would earn a matchup with 39-year-old Ray Austin (28-4-4, 18 KOs). The winner of Maskaev-Austin positions himself for a shot at WBC king, Vitali Klitschko (38-2, 37 KOs), whom Maskaev knocked out in the first round as an amateur.

FanHouse caught up recently with Maskaev, who has dual citizenship in America and the United States.

KIEL, Germany (AP) -- Zsolt Erdei of Hungary won the WBC cruiserweight title with a majority decision over Giacobbe Fragomeni on Saturday night.

Erdei vacated the WBO light-heavyweight title to fight at cruiserweight for the first time, and managed to do just enough against the 40-year-old Italian. Two judges had it 115-113 for Erdei, while the third scored it 114-114.

Erdei (31-0) controlled the first three rounds with his speed, landing several powerful rights to Fragomeni's head. The tide turned in the middle rounds when Fragomeni (26-2-1) stepped up the pace, and he began to wear down his younger opponent.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said that the early pay-per-view numbers released on Manny Pacquiao's victory over Miguel Cotto are "over a million and under 1.5 million buys -- and that's without all of the precincts being reported."

"They're not really accurate yet, but all that we can say with absolute certainty is that Pacquiao-Cotto was the biggest, revenue-producing event on pay-per-view for the entire year," said Arum. "And that surpasses all of the UFC. Everything. Any event. It's the biggest event of the year from the standpoint of revenue being generated."

Arum, who promotes Pacquiao (50-3-2, 37 knockouts), said that he met with officials at HBO on Thursday concerning the numbers.