- THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas
- Posts
- 🥊 The Last Dance
🥊 The Last Dance
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Fight With Teddy Atlas Newsletter, your one-stop shop for all things combat sports, brought to you by Teddy and The Fight team.
Every Friday We Bring You:
A combat sports news digest with all the headlines you need to know from Boxing and Mixed Martial Arts.
Highlights from the podcast and across the fight world.
Fight times and information you need to know ahead of time.
Fight News From Around The 🌍
Too Much Too Soon
Whilst he’s not the force he was a few years back, Canelo Alvarez showed he still had enough in the tank to decisively beat young super middleweight contender and former world champ Jaime Munguia last week, dropping him once on the way to a unanimous decision.
Munguia gave a good account of himself, however, and there are opportunities for him in the super middleweight division, perhaps against a former champion like Caleb Plant or fellow contender David Morrell.
Even after another dominant defense of his undisputed title, which he’s held now since 2021, Canelo faces mounting cries to finally face the one fighter who represents the ultimate threat to his crown: David Benavidez.
If Benavidez gets past his next fight against Oleksandr Gvozdyk (no easy task), it may set up a long, long overdue fight with the golden goose of boxing.
Can’t Keep A Monster Down
Naoya “The Monster” Inoue overcame the first knockdown of his professional career in front of a packed-out Toyko Dome by dropping and stopping former champion Luis Nery.
Despite being knocked down in the first, Inoue rallied to return the favour in the second round, before eventually closing the show in round 6 and knocking Nery through the ropes.
Although his talent continues to shine through, Inoue is now in his fourth weight class and the punches from bigger men are starting to have more of an impact.
Having effectively cleaned out super-bantamweight, a move up to featherweight may be on the cards next for The Monster.
Now he’s shown he can overcome being rocked in a fight, don’t bet against him cleaning up his 5th weight class soon.
Loma’s Last Dance
Modern-day boxing great Vasily Lomachenko will attempt to win the only major lightweight belt he never held as he takes on former champ George “Ferocious” Kambosos Jr for the IBF 135 lbs title in Perth, Australia tomorrow.
Both men share losses to former undisputed champion Devin Haney, although admittedly Lomachenko’s was a lot more controversial than the Aussie’s.
Now that Haney’s titles have been scattered by his move up to 140, there is an opportunity for fighters in and around that world level to swoop in and claim titles, and we’ll be witnessing a part of that on Saturday night.
Loma was riding a 3 fight win streak at lightweight before the Haney loss halted any kind of momentum he was building towards his ultimate goal of becoming undisputed champion in the weight class.
Father Time is famously undefeated, and even a fighter as talented as Loma will know that at 36, he can’t afford any more roadblocks if he is going to unify his third weight division.
As has been the case throughout his career, he hasn’t been given any sort of a layup here in being matched with Kambosos Jr, who in addition to being younger and naturally bigger, also has the mental boost of holding a win over the man who stopped Loma from becoming undisputed in Teofimo Lopez.
Throw in the fact that the fight is on Kambosos Jr’s home soil, and there are plenty of signs that point towards more of a challenge for Loma than many think.
Don’t take our word for it, get an in-depth analysis of the fight from Teddy himself.
Fight ⏰ for this weekend
Boxing: Kambosos vs Lomachenko (Saturday 11th/Sunday 12th)
🇺🇸 Full Card: 10pm Eastern/ 7pm Pacific | Main Event: 12am Eastern/ 9pm Pacific
🇬🇧 Full Card: 3am | Main Event: 5am
🇦🇺 Full Card: 12pm Eastern/ 10am Western | Main event: 2pm Eastern/ 12pm Western
MMA: Lewis vs Nascimento (Saturday 11th/Sunday 12th)
🇺🇸 Full Card: 7pm Eastern/ 4pm Pacific | Main Event: 9pm Eastern/ 6pm Pacific
🇬🇧 Full Card: 12am | Main Event: 2am
🇦🇺 Full Card: 9am Eastern/ 7am Western | Main event: 11am Eastern/ 9am Western