Here are my Olympic Boxing Semi-Final predictions for the middleweight and heavyweights. These bouts will take place on Friday the 22nd at 3:00 a.m. EST (middle) and 3:30 a.m. (heavy). We’ll analyze how I did on Saturday. (Jabandgrapple picks in bold)

Middleweight Semifinals
Darren Sutherland (IRL) vs. James Degale (GBR)
Sutherland likes to scrap and that makes him a jabandgrapple favorite. He throws punches, combination even! He boxes, he engages his opponent, he doesn’t dance and he works hard. These shouldn’t be unique qualities in a boxing tourney but these Olympic Games aren’t just any competition. In the quarters he beat the …read more

Saturday July 5, 2008 Boxing Results
Here are last night’s boxing results which involved Top Ten Ring Magazine fighters in the respective weight classes
Felix Sturm vs. Randy Griffin
#3 RM middleweight Felix Sturm (30-2-1) def. #6 RM middleweight Randy Griffin (24-2-3) by unanimous decision (116-112, 116-113, 118-110) in Halle, Germany to retain WBA middleweight title.
Round Three of Sturm vs. Griffin II:

**
Kendall Holt vs. Ricardo Torres
Unranked light welterweight Kendall Holt (24-2) def. #6 RM light welterweight Ricardo Torres (32-2) by First Round KO in Las Vegas, Nevada to win the WBO light welterweight title.
Three knockdowns in the first minute of this one! Below …read more

Last night’s sequel to 2006’s Arthur Abraham – Edison Miranda epic didn’t have its predecessor’s drama or its controversy. Instead it had thunder in the form of Abraham’s unbelievably powerful left hand which dropped Miranda three times in the fourth round.
This fight seemed like a tricky proposition for the Armenian middleweight. He was making his first trip to the United States. He was fighting at Miranda’s veritable home arena in South Florida. He was facing a hostile crowd. He wasn’t going to benefit from kind German judges. His counterpunching style isn’t as highly rated among American judges. He was …read more

Yesterday afternoon East Los Angeles middleweight Shawn Estrada became the ninth member of the American boxing team to qualify for the Olympic Games. He did it in determined fashion at the second American qualifiers in Guatemala City battling his Brazilian opponent Yamaguchi Florentine tooth and nail knowing that glory lay at the end of a positive four-round decision.
The match started tentatively with the two nervous fighters ably gaging each others strengths and weaknesses. By the end of the second the score was a sluggish 1-1. Then, with the flick of a switch the action picked up. The fighters traded …read more

Image details: St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital Benefit served by picapp.com
It’s really hard to get excited about Saturday’s 150 lb. bout between Oscar De La Hoya’s tired, pragmatic, money-oozing sheen and The Contender graduate Steve Forbes‘ pleading payday-grabbing genuflection. No one expects a good fight. No one expects Forbes to have much of a chance. Boxing fans will watch out of obligation, thank HBO for gifting us a non-PPV look at the Golden Boy, and beg in our most Tiny Tim-like voice: “Please Sir, can I have another?”
Forbes must be thinking the same thing. Why else would he accept a …read more