{"id":48470,"date":"2014-11-30T13:15:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-30T19:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=48470"},"modified":"2014-11-30T13:15:05","modified_gmt":"2014-11-30T19:15:05","slug":"antonio-magic-man-tarver-returns-december-11th-against-johnathon-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=48470","title":{"rendered":"Antonio “\u2018Magic Man” Tarver Returns December 11th Against Johnathon Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tarver\"<\/a>A fractured thumb that forced the cancellation of his scheduled September 29th fight with veteran Johnathan Banks (29-2-1, 19 KOs) may prove to have had a silver lining for 5-time world light heavyweight champion and 1996 U.S. Olympian Antonio \u201cMagic Man\u201d Tarver (30-6, 21 KOs).<\/p>\n

The determined and still dangerous southpaw, who turned 46 this past Friday, squares-off Dec. 11 against Banks in a 10-round heavyweight fight, on a Goossen Promotions card, airing live on ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes from Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, California.<\/p>\n

Tarver suffered a fractured thumb to his left hand, closer to the wrist, leaving him in a cast for five weeks, followed by two additional weeks wearing a brace for precautionary reasons as he trained. His extended training camp is the aforementioned silver lining.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was important is I trained through it, never leaving the gym, even though I was training one-handed,\u201d Tarver noted. \u201cI focused on my mind and body. We were locked into the original date but sometimes there\u2019s a silver lining when something like that happens. We made it into a positive by training right through. Hopefully, everybody will see the energy, power and conditioning in the fight when I am victorious over Banks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had long layoffs the last five years with only five fights. It\u2019s been frustrating. I\u2019m hoping to get busy after this fight, as I get closer to the opportunity to end my career on the highest note, when I\u2019m crowned heavyweight champion of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Tarver was toiling in Brazilian Rocky Fight Club in Miami, under the guidance of his head trainer Orlando Cuellar, Banks was busy training world heavyweight champion Wladmir Klitschko for his devastating knockout win over Kubrat Pulev last weekend in Germany.<\/p>\n

Banks, of course, was also training as he prepared Klitschko. \u201cAnytime you\u2019re training Klitschko has to help Banks,\u201d Tarver noted. \u201cHe has the best of both worlds training the heavyweight champion of the world. I\u2019m sure Klitschko shared strategy with him. I\u2019m expecting to fight the best Johnathan Banks. Klitschko wants him to be successful, so I\u2019m sure he let Banks share his training camp and his on-site trainers for conditioning. Training Klitschko can only help Banks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarver, fighting out of Tampa, was one of the world\u2019s top pound-for-pound fighters during a 4-year, 9-fight stretch between 2002-2006, in which he had a 6-3 record, defeating Roy Jones, Jr. in two of three, splitting a pair with Glen Johnson, defeating Montell Griffin, Eric Harding and Reggie Johnson, and losing to Bernard Hopkins.<\/p>\n

After all these years as a boxer, the hunger is still there for Tarver, who is on a mission to become the oldest world heavyweight champion of all-time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBanks and I will have to go through the fire,\u201d Tarver added. \u201cI can\u2019t wait!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fractured thumb that forced the cancellation of his scheduled September 29th fight with veteran Johnathan Banks (29-2-1, 19 KOs) may prove to have had a silver lining for 5-time world light heavyweight champion and 1996 U.S. Olympian Antonio \u201cMagic Man\u201d Tarver (30-6, 21 KOs). The determined and still dangerous southpaw, who turned 46 this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11330],"class_list":["post-48470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-antonio-magic-man-tarver-returns-december-11th-against-johnathon-banks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48470"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}