Contender Season Number Four Contestants: The Favorites
Here’s our first set of Contender Season Four Contestant Info profiling the clear set of favorites in the best season ever (TM).
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Vadim Tokarev
boxrec.com ranking: #8
Record: 24-1-1 (17)
Age: 36
Nationality: Russian
Birthplace: Ekaterinaburg, Russia
Height: 5′10 1/2″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: Darnell Wilson, Win by 10-round Unanimous Decision, October 18, 2005
Notable Opponents: Marco Huck (L); Felix Cora, Jr. (W); Firat Arslan (D)
Titles Held: NABF Cruiserweight
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B.J. Flores
boxrec.com ranking: #9
Record: 21-0-1 (13)
Age: 29
Nationality: American
Birthplace: Chandler, Arizona
Nickname: El Peligroso
Height: 6′ 2″
Stance: Orthodox
Fellow Contender’s Faced: Darnell Wilson, Win by 12-round Unanimous Decision, February 8, 2008
Notable Opponents: None
Titles Held: USBA Cruiserweight
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O’Neill …read more

Image details: The Contender Challenge – UK v USA served by picapp.com
The boxing reality show The Contender has found a new home, a new weight class, and its most impressive roster of fighters yet. After one season on NBC, and two on ESPN, the showcase for up-and-coming fighters will now be shown on the Versus Network. Let’s hope it does better than their famously low-rated NHL coverage. The new season will begin in December.
In the past few months Versus has intermittently put its toes in the boxing waters; its most notable event being May’s Ricky Hatton vs. Juan Lazcano bout. …read more

One after the next The Contenders have come and gone. Unimpressive, overhyped and out of their league. Until tonight. In a startling but well-deserved victory Sergio Mora outworked Ring Magazine’s #1 junior middleweight and WBC super welterweight champ Vernon Forrest to earn a majority decision win.
Few gave Mora a chance. Conventional wisdom said he was a club fighter who got a chance against the two-time Shane Mosley slayer not because of skill but because of his marketability. For the first three rounds this standard line of thinking seemed accurate. But in the fourth Mora landed some punches, found his groove, …read more

Image details: Oscar De La Hoya v Steve Forbes served by picapp.com
Outside of the ring and in the business world Oscar De La Hoya is obnoxiously confident, he revels in the vicious venture capitalist role, he’s gleeful in his greed, and delighted by the power his money brings. While I’m watching HBO’s wonderful one-off documentary Countdown to Oscar De La Hoya/Steve Forbes and a pre-fight Oscar interview with boxing poet Larry Merchant I see a forthright De La Hoya who is proud of his conscienceless business kingpin role and enjoys its prominent display.
He giggles when he says “greed …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