WBC light-welterweight champion Junior Witter (35-1, 20 KOs) defends his title on Saturday, September 7th, against challenger Vivian Harris (28-2-1, 18 KOs) at the Doncaster Dome, in Doncaster, Yorkshire, England. Witter, 33, looks to be in for a real dog fight, considering the mostly soft opposition that he has fought this far in his 10-year career, consisting mostly of European fighters not in the class of Harris, 29. One of the few good opponents that Witter faces in his career, Zab Judah, knocked him out in the 12th round in June 2000, after building a commanding lead up to that point in the fight.
Following that loss, Witter fought exclusively European opponents for the next six years of his career until defeating American DeMarcus Corley last year, in September 2006, by 12-round decision. The win, however, was tarnished somewhat by the fact that Corley had been beaten three out of his last six fights leading up to his fight with Witter, and was thought by many to be over-the-hill. Whatever the case, Witter defeated him to win the vacant WBC light welterweight championship at the age of 32. How, however, Witter finds himself matched against his best opponent since his one-sided beating at the hands of Zab Judah six years ago in having to face the tough Harris.
WBC heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev (34-5, 26 KOs) will be making his 2nd title defense on October 6th when he meets up with Nigerian knockout slugger Samuel Peter at Madison Square Garden, in New York. Maskaev, 38, is on a 12 consecutive win streak, dating back to February 2003. Previous to that, Maskaev had been plagued by chin problems, causing him to lose a string of vicious knockout losses to hard-punching – and severely limited – Kirk Johnson, Lance Whitaker and Corey Sanders between 2000-2001.
In the past few days, I’ve read countless reports from posters in various boxing site forums about the outcome of the WBO light welterweight championship bout between title holder Ricardo Torres (32-1, 28 KOs) and #1 challenger Kendal Holt (22-2, 12 KOs), most of which is centered on the fact that the figh was stopped too soon in the 11th round, suggesting that Holt should have been permitted to continue fighting longer by referee Genero Rodriguez. 
Four-time heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield (42-8-2, 27 KOs) is poised to win his fifth heavyweight title next month when he travels to Moscow, Russia to take on undefeated WBO heavyweight champion Sultan Ibragimov (21-0, 17 KOs) on October 13th. Never mind that Holyfield, 44, has done little to deserve a shot at the title since making his comeback to boxing following a two-year suspension by the New York State Athletic Commission due to “diminishing skills” following three consecutive losses to Chris Byrd, James Toney and Larry Donald. 
Undefeated middleweight John Duddy (21-0, 16 KOs) will return to the boxing ring on October 20th when he fights in Dublin, Ireland against an un-named opponent. Duddy, 28, was born in the UK, but has Irish ancestry, has fought most of his career in the United States, where he resides in New York City. Earlier this year, Duddy decided on traveling to Ireland, where he has hopes on winning a European title, and hopefully along the way built up a large fan base in his native country. In his first bout in Ireland, Duddy struggled badly in the process of stopping Italian Alessio Furlan (19-8-5, 8 KOs) in the 10th round on July 14, 2007. It was a harsh greeting for Duddy, who had hoped to have an easy time beating the unheralded Furlan. 
According to the latest boxing news from New Zealand’s Sunday News, former heavyweight challenger David Tua (48-3-1, 40 KOs) could possibly land a title shot against IBF heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KOs) as early as the beginning of 2008. The arrangement involves some legal issues apparently between Tua’s promoter Cedric Kushner and Wladimir Klitschko’s promoter Shelly Finkel. By Wladimir choosing to fight Tua (currently ranked # 12 in the WBC), Kushner would drop the lawsuit, the New Zealand Sunday News reports. 
Unbeaten junior middleweight prospect James Kirkland (20-0, 17 KOs) knocked out Mohammed Said (21-6-1, 14 KOs) in the 2nd round on Saturday night at the Emerald Queen Casino, in Tacoma, Washington. Kirkland knocked Said down twice in the first round, and then a final time in round two. Said wasn’t able to beat the count on after the 3rd knockdown. 
After witnessing the Russian Victor Oganov’s (26-1, 26 KOs) 9th round KO loss at the hands of Colombian punching machine Fulgencio Zuniga (20-2-1, 17 KOs), I must admit that I wasn’t the overly surprised by the ease of the 9th round stoppage victory for Zuniga. I’d only seen a couple of Oganov’s fights – against Sam Reese and Richard Grant – but that was all I needed to see to know that Oganov was overrated and wasn’t in the same class as Zuniga. As it turns out, I was correct. In this regard, Oganov represents the class of that is built up over time by throwing him in with overly soft opposition, in other words, fighters that he can easily beat to help build an impressive knockout record. 
Welterweight prospect Shamone Alvarez (19-0, 11 KOs) defeated Germain Sanders (27-4, 17 KOs) on Friday night by 12-round unanimous decision at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, new Jersey. At stake, was Alvarez’s NABO welterweight title, which he retained by defeating Sanders. The bout was from interesting, however, as both fighters lacked any real power to speak of and thus spent much of the bout landing rather weak looking combinations. Going into the bout, Alvarez was the fighter to keep an eye on, as he’s being hyped for a potential challenge for the WBO title at some point in the near future, but after watching him fight on Friday night, I’m hoping he avoids fighting for the title for a little while longer, because he’s not ready at this point. 
Welterweight Victor Ortiz (19-1-1, 14 KOs) came on late in the 10th round to knockout veteran Emmanuel Clottey (24-8, 14 KOs), the older brother of Joshua Clottey, on Thursday night at the Grand Plaza, in Houston, Texas. Clottey, 33, was knocked down twice in the tenth, before the referee Ronnie Halston swiftly moved in to put a stop to the bout at 2:59, with just a second to go in the tenth round. Up until then, Clottey had did little to distinguish himself in the fight, often throwing only a handful of punches each round while attempting to mostly avoid getting hit. He never seemed to get untracked during the fight, and only showed brief hints of the kind of talent that his younger brother, Joshua, posses.