Diego Gabriel Chaves

I recently did a piece for hubpages looking at the best Argentinian boxing prospects and found out about arguably the most exciting young Welterweight on the planet, Diego Gabriel Chaves. Chaves is one of many, many prospects in the Welterweight division though to me personally he's the top prospect in the division with everything a fighter could want. In fact despite only having had 20 fights he has already started to break into the rankings of various organisations thanks to his long reign as the WBO Latino champion.

Chaves hails from Buenos Aires the same area of Argentina as Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna and has been dubbed “La Joya” which translates from Spanish as meaning “The Jewel” and he really is the jewel of Argentinian boxing at the moment, the hidden gem in fact. Chaves turned professional aged 22 after having had a solid amateur background in his homeland sadly however he seems to lack the big international medals due to facing the likes of Demetrius Andrade and Erislandy Lara.

Since turning to the paid ranks in 2008 Chaves has carefully climbed the rankings with the aid of some destructive power and really solid fundamentals. As proof of Chaves' power he stopped his first 9 opponents, all inside the opening 3 rounds of fights. It wasn't until Chaves faced the teak tough Guillermo de Jesus Paz that he was given his first real test. In round 2 of his fight against Paz Chaves was pushed down though the referee counted it as a legitimate knockdown (rather shockingly). Despite the “knockdown” Chaves got up and dominated his experienced and tough opponent for the remaining 8 rounds to take a wide decision.

Just a month after defeating Paz Chaves would capture his first professional title by winning the WBO Latino light middleweight title a title he defended once before returning to Welterweight. Chaves wasn't with out a title for long as he would pick up the vacant WBO Latino Welterweight title on his return to the division a title he has no defended 5 times. It was whilst defending his title against Omar Gabriel Weis that Chaves was given by far his toughest test. The experienced Weis would drop Chaves in the 6^th round and really gave the youngster all he could handle in a close and very competitive fight. The fight, despite being incredibly tough, would have been one of the greatest learning experiences of Chaves' career, being dragged into a tough 12 round contest does beat blowing opponents away in a round.

Since struggling with Weis we've seen Chaves have 2 confidence building wins against lesser fighters then a win over the tough and experienced Jorge Daniel Miranda. Chaves would score a 3^rd round knock out over Miranda from a beautiful body shot that really showed the heavy and accurate hands that Chaves has. Whilst he had been tagged by Miranda he seemed to always be in control of the fight before the knockout over a genuinely tough opponent.

Whilst Chaves is personally the most likely of the top Argentinian boxing prospects to really make a mark on the sport that's not to say that Argentina doesn't have a huge number of solid contenders and emerging fighters that could all seriously contend for titles.

Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna

The Super Middleweight division is one of boxing's hottest divisions and of course boxing fan is looking forward to the up coming Super 6 Final between Andre Ward and Carl Froch. As we all know it's not only Froch and Ward that hold a lot of interest from fans but we also have fighters like the IBF champion Lucian Bute, the 2 time former champion Mikkel Kessler, former title challenger Andre Dirrell, WBO title holder Robert Stieglitz, former Middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and emerging British stars George Groves and James DeGale. Though we also have a number of lesser well known fighters who are slowly but surely emerging as serious threats, one of which is Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna.

Maderna is from La Plata, Buenos Aires and really has Argentinian boxing fans drooling at his combination of skill and raw power which has seen him advance to a record of 16-0 (12) since turning professional in 2008. Before he turned professional however Maderna was a world level amateur fighter having won Bronze at the 2006 South American games before going to both the 2007 World Amateur Championships and the 2008 Olympics.

After being beaten in the Beijing games by Shawn Estrada of the US Maderna would turn professional and debuted in December 2008. On his debut he defeated Guillermo Pablo Armani over a 4 round decision this victory was followed up just 3 weeks later when Maderna defeated Victor Hugo Peralta, also by decision. Through 2009 and 2010 Maderna would add a number of wins to his record and actually moved to 12-0 (9) by defeating relatively obscure fighters in his homeland. Though it was in 2011 that he really stepped up a level and showed he was a fighter who needed to be followed.

In Maderna's first fight of 2011 he defeated former world title contender Ruben Eduardo Acosta via a 10 round decision. It was the first time Maderna had been beyond 5 rounds in his career and he passed the test by beating a tough fighter in Acosta in a fight that would see Maderna crowned the Argentinian Super Middleweight champion. Since then Maderna has added the interim WBO Latino Super Middleweight title to his waist by stopping Martin Abel Bruer inside a round and defending both of his titles once.

Stylistically Maderna seems to be a very intelligent fighter who appears to be huge for a Super Middleweight (he was dwarfing over Jorge Rodriguez when the two men met earlier this year). It's not just that Maderna is a massive fighter but he also uses his height well, especially using his jab to establish distance. Rather than being an out and out power puncher Maderna seems to be able to break opponents down well before stepping in with the heavy artillery. As you can see in the video below Maderna does have a lot going for him and when he lands that straight right hand he may well have one of the best punches in the Super Middleweight division.

Whilst Maderna has been on a tear through the C level Super Middleweights in 2011 he has been racing up the rankings. He is currently #21 in the IBO's computerised rankings, and #24 on Boxrec.com though most impressive is his #9 ranking with the WBO. These rankings have helped push him into being one of the top Argentinian boxing prospects.

Video thanks to boxeola1

Yohei Tobe

Even thought it is rare for me to talk about Japanese fighters on this blog Yohei Tobe is a fighter I simply cannot shut up about. The 24 year old Bantamweight was a former two-time national amateur champion before turning professional in February 2011. On his debut he made an immediate impact by stopping the Korean Super Flyweight champion Jin-Ki Jung in just 70 seconds. Just 4 months later Tobe would fight in his second bout when he took on the experienced Wandee Singwancha (who entered with a record of 66-13-1, 17KO's). Singwancha had been WBC interim champion at both Minimumweight and Light Flyweight and despite fighting above his best weight it was still hugely impressive that Tobe took him out at 1:58 of the second round.

Whilst Tobe's first 2 victories were impressive it was his 3rd professional contest that has really got the hardcore boxing fans excited as Tobe faced. In October Tobe faced the very tough Kohei Kono, a 2-time world title challenger who had lost a close to Nobuo Nashiro and a wider loss to Tomas Rojas. Although Kono, at 30 was the more experienced fighter he was made to look amateurish at times as he charged in only to be caught by uppercuts and jabs by the intelligent and much taller Tobe who took a close but unanimous decision over 8 rounds.

Whilst Tobe's 2011 has been an amazing rise from amateur star to genuinely exciting prospect whats maybe most amazing is that Tobe is currently ranked at #22 with the WBC after just 3 fights!

Tobe is one of the 11 boxers on the list of prospects to watch in 2012, and is arguably the most exciting addition to the list. If Tobe can continue his rise in 2012 we may well see him challenging the likes of Koki Kameda (the WBA Bantamweight champion) or dropping down to Super Flyweight (the division where we will likely see him competing in the short term) and facing Tomonobu Shimizu (the WBA Super Flyweight champion) in an all Japanese world title fight.

The footage of Tobe's first two professional bouts are below thanks to ibatetsu1





If you would like to follow Yohei on boxrec his record can be found here

Yoshihiro Kamegai

Japanese prospects are very rarely featured on this blog (and I'm sorry about that) though one fighter we simply cannot ignore is Japanese Welterweight prospect Yoshihiro Kamegai (19-0, 17). The hard hitting 29 year old has started to get some international attention in recent months thanks to his appearance in the states when he defeated Hector Munoz  in 6 rounds (on the undercard of Nishioka v Marquez).

Having debuted back in 2005 Kamegai's career has progressed somewhat slowly though he has shown all the traits of a fighter who can go a very long way. So far he has shown truly heavy hands and the ability to punch from almost any angles with his ability to mix it to both head and body being excellent. He has also shown an ability to switch hit and appears to hit genuinely hard with either hand. In fact of his 19 careers bouts only 4 bouts have gone beyond 6 rounds with only Daisuke Hata and Heri Andriyanto managing to see the distance.

Although Kamegai has genuine power on his shots he does look to be somewhat defensively deficient and can be hit clean and hard due to major defensive issues. Due to his defensive issues he could become one of the most fun fighters in the talent heavy Welterweight division. Sadly despite his power it's this defensive flaw that is likely to hold him back, despite his new found fame in the US. The current Welterweight division seems to be a division based upon speed with fighters like Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Andre Berto and Amir Khan (who has signaled his intention to move upto Welterweight in the foreseeable future). His defensive issues will almost certainly cost him though it will be fun to see how his career goes.

Zurdo to be tested tough on Canelo undercard

In the past I've looked at Gilberto "Zurdo" Ramirez Sanchez, the young and emerging Mexican Middleweight who currently holds a perfect record of 19-0 (17). Sanchez has so far faced relatively limited opposition with Rogelio Medina and Oney Valdez standing out as the only credible wins, though on Saturday (on the undercard of Saul "Canelo" Alvarez v Kermit Cintron) he faces a very tough test against the experienced Samuel Miller (24-4, 21).

The 32 year old Miller is currently based out of  La Habra, California (though was born in Arboletes, Colombia) and is one of the most testing fighters out there. Not only does Miller have a solid punch on him, he's also tough having never been stopped. Whilst Miller has lost to world title contenders such as David Lopez and Marco Antonio Rubio he's probably best known for his wild war with Darrell Woods in what was one of 2007's fight of the year contenders.

For Sanchez this is a genuinely tough test against a power punching tough man who is likely to shake Zurdo at least once. If the Mexican 20 year old can get past the tough test of Miller then he'll have further cemented his growing reputation as one of the brightest prospects in Mexico.

Daniel "Bad Boy" Rosas, part 2-The title fight

Back in May I wrote about a young Mexican prospect called Daniel Rosas,who at the time was 10-0 (7) and was emerging as a contender in either the Bantamweight or Super Bantamweight divisions. It's always exciting when one of us writers spots a special talent and this coming Friday Rosas, (now 12-0, 9) attempts to prove he is a real deal whilst fighting down at Super Flyweight.

Since the first piece was written on Rosas back in May the young Mexican has dropped down to Super Flyweight where he picked up WBO Youth Title and defended it once though it's the way this sport has developed which now sees him fighting for an "interim" world title. We are less than a week away from Rosas "title fight" in which he will be facing Jose Cabrera (20-2-1, 8) in Los Mochis.

Whilst this is easily the biggest fight of Rosas' career it's a fight he really should be able to win and if he does he may well join the top of one of boxing's more changing division. The current WBO champions is Omar Andres Narvaez, who in 2 weeks makes his Bantamweight debut to face Nonito Donaire whilst the other champions include Rodrigo Guerrero (who recently won the IBF title), Tomonobu Shimizu (who won the WBA title just a few weeks ago), Tepparith Singwancha (interim WBA champion who upset the highly rated Drian Francisco) and Suriyan Sor Rungvisai (who scored a huge upset a few weeks back by defeating Tomas Rojas and defends his title in November against Nobuo Nashiro).

Rosas could join the ever growing list of Mexican world champions, but could he also actually be the best of them? We'll have to find out but one thing is for sure, he's an exciting and skilled fighter who will be near the top win or lose.

Grzegorz Proksa

Grzegorz Proksa, the Polish born British based middleweight alerted the world to his great potential this past weekend by completely dominating former IBF Middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester. Sylvester refused to come out of his corner after 3 one sided rounds at the hands of the man dubbed "Super G".

Whilst Proksa may no longer be a "prospect" as such he was a fighter who was so alarmingly eye catching that he deserved a place in this blog based on his skill, performance and the way he has managed to remain under-the-radar until the Sylvester fight despite being so ultra talented. The 26 year old was born in Jaworzno, Poland though is now fighting out of Redhill in Surrey (UK) and has already fought all over the world in a career that has somehow not managed to get the attention that he has deserved.

Despite his UK and Polish backgrounds Proksa actually made his professional debut in the USA beating Adam Capo by TKO in the opening round on the undercard of a star studded card that included Jeff Lacy defending his IBF Super Middleweight title against Rubin Williams and Jose Luis Castillo defending the WBC Lightweight title against Julio Diaz. This was way back in 2005. Just months after the victory over Capo Proksa would be back fighting in the US when he would stop Sean Rawley Wilson in 2 rounds. Like on his debut the card was star studded with the infamous first fight between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo headlining (a WBO and WBC Lightweight title unification) with Juan Manuel Marquez defending the IBF and WBA Super Featherweight titles against Victor Polo.

Over the following few years Proksa would begin to fight more regularly in the UK where he picked up both the IBF and WBC youth versions of the middleweight title. Then came a fight in Ireland and Germany and soon after he turned 25 he had added the EBU-EU (European Union) middleweight title to his belt collection. Although this belt was somewhat meaningless Proksa did defend it once, needing to go to Spain to defend it against the well regarded Spaniard Pablo Navascues. Proksa would stop Navascues in 9 rounds to defend his title and score, what was then, his biggest win.

Although people that had seen him live were big on him he was seen as the under-dog when he traveled to the Jahnsportforum in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to face Sylvester. Sylvester was the home town favourite though it seemed straight from the off that the swift, accurate and exciting looking Proksa just simply had far too much for him. Proksa was landing clean accurate shots time and time again, boxing with his hands down low and repeatedly switching stances whilst toying with Sylvester. This was the performance of the night and the performance that saw Proksa become the European middleweight champion in excellent fashion.

Currently 26-0 (19) Proksa has already won fights in the USA, UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain and been featured on cards including the likes of Victor Ortiz, Manny Pacquiao, Jose Luis Castillo, Diego Corrales, Juan Manuel Marquez and Juan Manuel Lopez. The way he is fighting at the moment Proksa may be having his name in those sorts of circles, with a fun to watch style, fast hands and surprising power.

Thanks to IGIELI for this video