Garth Wood has come along way since winning the Australian contender series

Garth Wood 10-1-1 (6) provided one of the biggest shocks in recent Australian boxing history when he stopped former World champion Anthony “The Man” Mundine 40-4 (24) in the fifth round in a middleweight bout in Sydney today.

Wood won the Australian version of the contender and the clash with Mundine was his “prize” for winning it. Mundine at thirty five, has been flirting with both the middleweight and light middleweight divisions and this probably did not help.

The fight was a scrappy affair from start to finish. The referee was a very busy man and both men mauled and the veteran Mundine spent plenty of time complaining to the third man.

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The votes have been counted and the inductees have been announced  for the 2011 International Boxing Hall of Fame. The controversial inclusion of Mike Tyson will obviously make the headlines  but there are some other great fighters and figures from the fight game on the list. Here is a short round up of the inductees:

Julio Cesar Chavez

Julio Cesar Chavez 107-6-2 (88)- Chavez turned pro in 1980 after only thirteen amateur bouts. He won World championship belts from super featherweight all the way up to light welterweight. Chavez was better at the lighter weights and in his prime was an absolute fighting machine, utilising a powerful body attack with good power, a good chin and tremendous stamina.

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Wladimir Klitschko (left) and Dereck Chisora (right)

The Klitschko brothers are normally calm inside and outside of the ring. However inexperienced British heavyweight Dereck Chisora 14-0 (9) does seem to be getting under the skin of Wladimir Klitschko 55-3 (49) ahead of their title showdown on Saturday night.

Chisora, as per usual was very confident and for once Wladimir was not always his usual respectful self. Here are some of the better quotes from todays press conference.

Wladimir Klitschko- “As a boxer, he’s got pretty good skills and determination. He is a very busy fighter so there will be a lot of action on Saturday. But as a person, he is horrible

Me, I do not beat up women like you do. You do not know where once practises boxing. It is in the ring!”

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Paul Appleby’s 16-2 (11) dreams of a World title shot at Ricky Burns went up in smoke when he was beaten and at times dominated by Jospeh Laryea 14-4 (11) over twelve rounds for the minor WBO inter continental super featherweight belt.

Laryea laid down his template for the fight in round one, using his height and reach advantages and pushing Appleby back with plenty of solid jabs. Appleby found his range in the second and several crunching body punches made Laryea retreat in obvious discomfort and it looked like Appleby had found the tactics although he had suffered a cut.

However Laryea would not be denied tonight and he pushed on and kept the jab in Appleby’s face. Appleby had gone back on the retreat but was having trouble getting out of the way of the long punches coming his way.

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Ricky Burns still the WBO super featherweight champion

Ricky Burns 30-2 (7) tonight made a successful first defence of his WBO super featherweight title with a wide unanimous decision over the very game Andreas Evensen 13-2 (5) at the Braehead Arena in Glasgow, Scotland.

Burns had a vociferous crowd as support and as the men came together the height difference between the two was massive with Burns standing nearly six inches taller than his challenger.

It looked like a very early night for Burns as he dropped his Norwegian opponent within the first twenty seconds with a chopping straight right that sat Evensen on his backside. However it was a flash knock-down and after Evensen got up at three, the stoppage opportunity had passed.

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Nonito Donaire- Boxing superstar in the making?

While the withdrawal of Julio Cesar Chavez jnr from the pay-per-view card in California tomorrow night is a blow to the promoter Bob Arum as Chavez jnr would have pulled in a lot of buys from Mexican fans, there is still a good quality card for us fans to view.

Nonito Donaire 24-1 (16) is still knocking on the door of boxing superstardom. Since beating Vic Darchinyan in 2007 in a big shock at the time, the “Filipino Flash” has hardly lost a round but the big fights have failed to come his way.

That could change if he wins on Saturday night. His opponent is the former WBA bantamweight champion Volodymyr Sydorenko 22-2 (7) and although the interim WBA bantamweight was scheduled to be at stake this is now in doubt.

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Jean-Marc Mormeck

Once again the former undisputed cruiserweight World champion Jean-Marc Mormeck 36-4 (22) did not really impress but  is still unbeaten since moving up to the heavyweight division after winning a twelve round split decision over Timur Ibragimov 30-3-1 (16) last night.

Fighting in France, Mormeck is well supported but unlike his last points win over Fres Oquendo, the consensus was that in this fight he did deserve the decision.

It seemed like the taller Ibragimov started the better using his height and reach advantages to good effect while Mormeck tried to get inside but struggled to get inside the jab.  In fact Ibragimov was probably ahead after four rounds.

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WBA super World featherweight champion Chris John

Chris John 43-0-2 (22) has been the WBA featherweight champion since June 2004 and has made eleven successful defences of his title, yet is still unheard of outside of the hardcore boxing fraternity which is a shame because he is a very talented fighter.

Defences have been against some quality operators such as Juan Manuel Marquez and Derrick Gainer yet his big coming out party in the United States did not go quite to plan. In February 2009, John fought for the first time outside of Asia and took on the tough but not quite elite Rocky Juarez in a fight which was supposed to elevate John into a major player.

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Ricky Burns (right) and challenger Andreas Evensen (left)

Ricky Burns 29-2 (7) provided the biggest shock in British boxing this year when he outpointed the crude but very powerful Roman Martinez 24-1-1 (15) to win the WBO super featherweight title. Home advantage meant Burns fought the night of his life and he once again fights in Glasgow in his first defence.

Burns will be defending against Norwegian Andreas Evensen 13-1 (5) only three months after his title win. The plan is for Burns to obviously win and fellow Scot Paul Appleby to win on the undercard and build up to the first ever all Scottish World title fight.

Burns was quite simply a revelation against Martinez. He was dropped in the first round but from then on superbly carried out a plan of boxing and moving while occasionally standing and trading with the Puerto Rican.

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After the debacle involving the fight between David Haye and Audley Harrison, it seems that Harrison 27-5 (20) has nowhere to go. However as per normal Harrison sees things differently and today he released the follwing statement to skysports.com.

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Odlanier Solis in training camp for his eliminator with Ray Austin

2004 Olympic champion at heavyweight Odlanier Solis has been telling anybody who will listen, that he is ready to win a World title for quite some time now, but he should become mandatory contender after he takes on Ray Austin 28-4-4 (18) in a WBC heavyweight eliminator on December 17th.

If he wins the fight (which he should ) he will be mandatory contender to Vitali Klitschko. There is no doubt that Solis is talented but many people have voiced concerns about Solis’ weight.

Solis was training today at his Miami base where he has reunited with his former amateur coach Pedro Luis Diaz who also trains WBC light heavyweight  champion Jean Pascal.

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Drian Francisco went to his opponents back yard and took the title

After losing his second pro fight in 1997, Duangpetch Kokietgym 52-2-1 (21) had gone on an amazing unbeaten run. However this was brought to an end today when he was stopped in ten rounds by Drian Francisco 20-0-1 (16) for the WBA interim super bantamweight title in Thailand.

Kokietgym had home advantage for the fight but could not make it count. Francisco controlled most of the bout but Kokietgym landed plenty of punches of his own but unfortunately several of them were low.

In fact Kokietgym was deducted a point in the sixth and then got put down twice in the same round to leave him with a mountain to climb. Kokietgym gave it what he had but it seemed a matter of time before Francisco would bring the fight to an end.

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Chavez jnr will not fight until 2011

After plenty of will he, wont he questions in the last couple of days, it is now known that Julio Cesar Chavez jnr 41-0-1 (30) will not be fighting on the pay per view card at Anaheim, California, USA on Saturday night.

Chavez jnr has been reportedly suffering from the flu but it was reported yesterday that the fight would still be going ahead. However Chavez jnr woke this morning with a temperature of 103 degrees and has had to withdraw. It seems like Chavez’s bout was doomed from the start as original opponent Alfonso Gomez pulled out injured to be replaced by Pawel Wolak.

Wolak 27-1 (17) will still fight on Saturday’s and the card will still go ahead. It is headlined by former World flyweight champion Nonito Donaire 24-1 (16) who is fighting for the interim WBA World bantamweight title against Volodymyr Sydorenko.

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Nate Campbell was a very good fighter

The exciting, controversial and former undisputed World lightweight champion, Nate Campbell 33-7-1 (25) has decided to retire. A defeat to Victor Ortiz back in May seemed to signal the end at the top level for Campbell and a surprising eight round split decision loss to journeyman Water Estrada has signalled the end.
Today, the always engaging Campbell released the following statement:
“First of all, I want to let everyone know that I’m fine. But after thinking about Saturday’s fight, I know it’s time for me to hang it up. I’ve reached the point where I can still see the openings, but I just can’t get my shots there in time. In this business, a tenth of a second delay is too much.

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Super Brian Nielsen in his erm "prime".

Several weeks ago I reported about three crazy match up’s that were in the pipeline. Well unfortunately one of them has been signed up. Multi-time former World heavyweight champion Evander Holyfied 43-10-2 (28) has signed up to fight Danish legend (in Denmark) Brian Nielsen 64-2 (43).

The date has been set for the fifth of March and the venue will be Denmark. “Super” Brian is still very famous in his homeland and the fight will do big business. Unfortunately Nielsen has not fought since 2002 so we have absolutely no idea of what he has left.

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