The first and only man to hold the Elite XC lightweight title, KJ Noons, will officially make his return to boxing one week from today when he faces Alejandro Bogarin (8-6-3, 2 knockouts) at the Expo Center in El Monte, Calif., on Thursday, November 13.
Bogarin is a 29-year-old Mexican fighter who is coming off a knockout loss in July to Fransisco Santana. He was eventually knocked out by a body shot in the fight, but Santana worked him over pretty good throughout the bout.
Based on his record and his six career losses by knockout this looks like a winnable fight for KJ.
KJ sports an impressive professional boxing record of (7-1, 5 knockouts), but has not competed in a licensed match in well over a year. He’ll come in riding a three-fight win streak in the sport. His one loss came on a razor close decision to Daniel Stanislavjevic almost three years ago.
He signed on with Pro Elite under the circumstances that he could pursue both his mixed martial arts and boxing careers. When he won the 160-pound title last November over Nick Diaz his focus obviously began to turn more toward MMA.
But the Hawaiian native never lost his desire to box.
When he and Elite XC could not agree to terms on a rematch with Diaz, he was stripped of his title. Because of that, Noons decided to switch back to boxing for the time being or until the two sides could work out their differences.
Now that Pro Elite has filed for bankruptcy a return to mixed martial arts is more likely for Noons in the future. The issue now is who the apparent free agent will sign with and just how far he actually chooses to pursue this boxing thing.
Time will tell.
50 Comments »
WOW, way to challenge yourself KJ.
I hope he gets KO’d into a coma!!!
for real hes a fighting a guy whos 8-6? common KJ you little bitch, step it up
you know damn well boxing records are deceiving though they pay people to lose
how come nobody’s paid KJ to get KTFO?
why pay him to lose a fight when you just gotta pay him to fight diaz
se4riously Mania, you need to ban all posting of KJ Noons from this site! The guy disgraced himself and the sooner we all forget about that Pussy….THe BETTER!!!
KJ will go down in history as one of the biggest cowards in the history of mma!
The world will be a better place when we forget that KJ exists.
He will go down in the history of mma as one of the biggest coward champions that the sport has ever seen (up there with tito).
I don’t agree with the tito comment, there was a time when he was very dominant!
up there with tito? yea right, he wanted to get the money he deserved for fighting his friend liddell..
Up there with Fatty Filho.
I don’t think Tito and Liddell were such good buddies. Maybe it’s just because Chuck always said that they weren’t. Tito was a dominant champ at one time though, something that we will never say about KJ.
exactly there’s no comparion can be made between those two..
i meant to be made..
There is a huge comparison to be made between Tito and KJ. They were both Champions who bitched out refusing to fight the #1 contenders.
I know Tito used to be a dominant fighter, but I have no respect for him as a champion. He did the same thing as KJ, refused to fight chuck for the longest! How do you guys not see the comparison? Tito NEVER put his title on the line against CHUCK, which was a bitch move! Tito only accepted a fight with chuck when he needed to to try n win back the title! He had no choice!
Tito along with KJ will go down as 2 chump champs who refused to defend their titles against the #1 contender….and I cant respect that!
no, im sorry but u can’t be more wrong about that.. Tito is smart and wanted more money as the champion because he knew it would be a huge fight, now tell me what’s wrong with that? he was the dominating champion and deserved it.. and when he wanted more money Dana did what he always does he goes out public calling Tito a coward to try to embarass him so much that he would have to accept the fight.. if he was afraid of Chuck Liddell he wouldn’t have fought him 2 times.. U also need to respect him for fighting with back pain throughout his career and accepting the Machida fight which no one wanted!
hopefully he get ktfo crazy horse style.
The best statement made!
KJ’s a homo. Hopefully he gets a worse beatdown than he got from crazyhorse
Hes more of a chump than a champ! I still want to see Diaz break his arm, but that fight will never happen.
I’m with you!
KJ Noons “the boxer”.. that’s pretty accurate. Noons.. is a bird ass nigga.. straight up Chump. No respect for him at all.
What the hell is a bird ass nigga?
lolololololololololol
Yeah, you lost me on that one too. haha. It sounds funny though.
Its a Tri State area thing. I feel you Phil. By the way…Sorry I missed your call last night Phil, I passed out really early! too STONED!!!
I like the idea of boxers getting involved in mma and vise versa. I am one of the boxing to mma converts, both as a fan and as a hobby. I loved boxing growing up and hope that it returns to glory.
A number of boxers have shown an interest in stepping over to the dark side, one of which is David Haye (unanimous cruiserweight world champ before he chucked in the belts). I would love to see him get some ground game and have a dabble.
If brock can come in with a 100% 1 dimensional background the boxers can too, suppose its just a case of money talks tho.
Good luck to KJ, i know he gets a lot of flack for the Diaz fiasco, partly because Diaz is so popular but he had a point through a lot of it and openly stated he wanted Alverez so was hardly ducking.
Anyway i digress, more boxer/mma artists cross overs would be fun to watch. I for one am looking forward to seeing how KJ gets on.
the big difference is that wrestling carries over to MMA much more so than boxing. its easier to teach a wrestler to be a striker, than a striker to be a wrestler. traditionally wrestlers have always done better transitioning to mma than boxers have.
when a wrestler gets taken down, he is still in his element. a wrestler understands changing levels.
a boxer just knows how to look out for a punch, is completely out of his element with kicks being thrown in and is a like a turtle on his back when it goes to the ground.
A fair point and well made! I’d agree wrestling is the base of mma, a skill you just can’t do without. However i also think as opposed to the art of bjj some of the well co-ordinated athletic boxers could learn the basics pretty quickly.
that is true. like any athlete that have to be willing to unlearn a lot of what they know in order to succeed. i think that is why Brock has shown some potential. he hasn’t been focusing on his wrestling at all, but rather focusing on his striker and BJJ in training.
@Nick J & kitsunex
I agree with both of you on this topic. Im one of the few people that agree with what Noons did. I really dont think he was dodging Nate at all. He was whooping his ass. Straight up. I wouldnt want to give someone a rematch for my belt if they were going to pay my opponent three times as much as me. Especially when Im the champ. I also dont blame him for going back to boxing.
@Kevin
Why in hell would someone not want a warm up fight? Its his first fight in like a year. It would be straight up stupid of him to go back to boxing and have his first fight be with someone that is really good. Makes no sense. Im positive that you wrote that only because you dont like Noons. And the only reason for that.. is because you like Diaz, and wanted Diaz to be the title holder. He had his chance, he blew it. He lost. Bottom line. Why would anyone get a second chance at the belt without having to go through the ranks again? Everyone says how Lesnar doesnt deserve a shot yet… why would Diaz? Should Faber get an automatic rematch now? No way. He has to go back through the ranks again. Thats how it works. What about Rampage? Why didnt he get an auto rematch? Will Randy get one if he loses? Doubt it. Will Big Nog? Nope. Then why should Diaz get to have a second shot and get paid three times the amount of the champ? Get off his ball sack. I almost always agree with you on everything. Now, Im so sick of hearing about Diaz getting skipped, that I have to put my point out there.
I agree too. He wasn’t dodging Nate ,he was dodging Nick.
My bad. I meant Nick.
How about Mayweather gettin’ his faced messed up in MMA, LOL!
The transition from boxing to mma is so much harder then wrestling to mma. Wresltling is essentially the perfect counter to BJJ and JJ. One dimensional wrestling in MMA is a much better skill set to have the the one dimentional boxing/striker.
well KJ Noons “the boxer” f’d up your “MMA boy” Nick Diaz so chill out..
That is a tired saying to a done arguement. Did you even read what Noons had to say on that whole situation? Sorry, he is a chump. And I’m not a Diaz nuthugger.
Preach on Chef!
The Gospel of Chefdaddy!
what matters is what he does when he’s inside the ring or whatever and from what i’ve seen he’s been winning so Diaz must be a superchump..
he wasn’t winning when crazy horse beat his ass was he?
no but there’s not too many undefeated fighters out there 7-1 is pretty good.. when im on here i see that every dude in mma that wants more money is being called an idiot these days when really the idiots are the fools that go out there and gets their faces destroyed without getting payed.. atleast KJ knows how to box unlike other chumps in mma that has no clue about boxing!
Do they really need to put the ™ next to elitexc still?
Hopefully he remains just a boxer.
I’m helping KJ get ready for this match. Alex Bogarin actually challenged KJ to a boxing match. KJ is gonna get paid right for it so he is going to box Alex. KJ is also in talks with Dana White so we will see what is going to happen.
HOLLA!
I don’t care if I never hear this guys name again.
KJ,,, if you are listening,,, MMA fans are not happy with you! Not that you really ever cared.
Dont listen to Bobby-B-Bonkers. Its just these peeps that dont want to see you fight.
if he has potential in boxing.then he should be smart and stay there.because its more stable financially and he can ge a chance to get the huge payday..80million dollars!!the max he can have in mma is probably 250,000dollars
the diaz brothers suck
KJ Noons didnt even beat Diaz … it was stopped because of a cut… only a bitch jumps for joy at winning a fight because of a CUT. A true man would want to have it end via KO,Submission, or at the very least have the fight go the distance. And then to turn around and not give a rematch after “winning” because of a CUT is inexusible.
KJ NOONS LEGACY WILL BE THAT OF A BITCH. period.
I for one, like Noons… I like the way he fights… I watched the Diaz fight, and he destroyed Diaz… time after time Diaz was unable to take Noons down, every time he shot in he got a knee to the face, and on a couple of occasions he got knocked down with solid punches… fight stoppages due to cuts are a part of the fight game, if you guys watched enough fights, you’d know that… of utmost importance is the safety and well-being of the fighters as they are the source of income for the organization they fight for… what good are a bunch of fighters that get all fucked up and can’t fight subsequent fights?
Secondly, Diaz did not deserve a rematch so soon after getting his ass kicked, regardless of whether or not he had surgery to repair the very reason he gets cut so easily, and regardless of whether or not he felt he deserved it… that’s not how matches are set up, maybe you Diaz groupies didn’t know that… there were a few fighters that were more deserving of that title shot than Diaz… Edwards was one, and he lost by KO, remember? Alvarez was another, but that won’t happen now… and remember this: if Diaz were as good as some of his nut-huggers on this thread claim, he’d still be in the UFC… of his mediocre 18-7 record only 2 wins were against names that I recognize, Lawler and Neer, and Lawler is no longer with the the UFC…
Also, Noons had every right to attempt a re-negotiation of a salary that greatly underpaid him in comparison to a guy he’d already beaten, handily I might add… he even offered to turn in his belt in exchange for a fight with Alvarez, but apparently EliteXC wasn’t interested… like it matters now…
Joze, you’re a moron… Noons didn’t celebrate the fact he won the fight because of a cut, he celebrated because he won the belt, jackass… if anyone was a bitch, it was Diaz for acting the way he did, only bitches act that way, and then to act even worse, along with his punkass brother, when Noons defended his title against Edwards, THAT is inexcusable… I guess he would’ve been happier if EliteXC had just handed him the belt because he used to be in UFC…
I’ll bet most of you guys here that are criticizing Noons don’t fight for a living, so what gives you the right to criticize any of these guys for doing what they feel is in their best interest? A fighter’s career is 10 years maybe more if they’re lucky, they have every right to get as much as they can while they can, so until you build a “legacy” in the ring, or in the octagon, or in life in general, shut the fuck up please…