Archive for the ‘Fight Previews’ Category
Boxing: Tyson Fury career lightest at 245 pounds
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Heavyweight, Sports on April 13, 2012 at 3:57 pmBoxing: Haye, Ron Boddy and all that Chazz
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Olympic Boxing, Sports on April 13, 2012 at 3:10 pmSeptember 10th 2004 was a seminal night in British Boxing. For the curious, this was the day David Haye learned the priceless lessons only defeat can impart in his stoppage loss to the venerable Carl Thompson. Without a loss at that juncture, one wonders if Haye would have rallied to hit the heights he did. Had the loss come later, it may have been too late for the rededication he employed post-Thompson. It was a memorable event for those in attendance too. My own enjoyment of proceedings was enhanced by a chance introduction to a stalwart observer of the fight game, and now regular on Steve Bunce’s BBC London show, Ron Boddy.
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Boxing: DeMarcus gets the Corley never expected; disappointing for McCloskey
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on April 13, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Boxing: Frank Warren – “It would be a tough fight but even if he got beat, so what?”
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on March 30, 2012 at 1:43 pmI cannot think of a statement of more significance, if it is upheld, than the one Frank Warren delivered to the BBC in his attempt to substantiate the suggestion Nathan Cleverly is being primed for a ‘unification’ fight with Bernard Hopkins later this year. Followers of the noble art are well versed in the model Warren usually employs in his promotion of an unbeaten fighter like Cleverly; offer the fighter every advantage through shrewd matchmaking via the vagaries of the WBO’s ranking system and home comforts while simultaneously tantalising the public with tales of forthcoming opponents. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Tyson Fury will topple a Klitschko first – BoxingWriter Reader’s Vote
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Heavyweight, Mike Tyson, Shop, Sports on March 29, 2012 at 7:57 pm
The audience of BoxingWriter.co.uk plumped for young Tyson Fury in a poll which asked the question; Who will one of the Klitschko’s lose to first? It will surprise many I’m sure that the 6-9 giant has emerged as the most likely to dethrone either brother. Naturally, Tony Thompson and likely Alexander Povetkin are the two with most immediate opportunity and that should shorten their odds and improve their support in this poll. In part it did, but Fury finished with more than 52% of the votes. An astonishing result. And yes, it was a relatively modest sample. But still….
Boxing: March of Time for Light-Welter and Welterweight veterans
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Shop, Sports on March 22, 2012 at 9:51 pmIt strikes me as strangely poetic that three of the most significant fighters of their generation should all be pursuing relevance and redemption this weekend. Erik Morales, Jose Luis Castillo and Zab Judah all hope to eek one last hurrah from their respective careers. Most notable is Morales’ attempt to defend the WBC’s Light-Welterweight belt, followed by Judah’s eliminator bout with Vernon Paris and lastly Castillo, who looked jaded 5 years ago against Ricky Hatton, mixing it up with Jose Miguel Cotto. The oldest among them, Castillo, will be furthest from the top of the bill. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Heavyweight Poll – Who will one of the Klitschko’s lose to first?
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Sports on March 16, 2012 at 10:36 amThere are precious few negative descriptives left unemployed by those who try to define the current heavyweight scene. From the shallow to the lamentable, to the drab and forgettable the current crop of heavyweights and those still clinging to credibility from the last generation have largely all been exposed or dismantled at the hands of the Brothers Ukraine. Those thought to have the tools to upset their duopoly; Povetkin and Haye have proven lacking in the ability or willingness to execute the required strategy. So who will find a way to beat them? Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Judah back to Brooklyn; but a ring is a ring is a ring
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson on March 8, 2012 at 12:35 amI read today Light Welterweight contender Zab Judah is promoting his next fight on the notion it represents his debut in his native Brooklyn and is therefore, publicity implies, likely to evoke a return to the glories of his past. Like many 34-year-old pugilists before him, Judah is attempting to invert the natural course all fight-careers take; decline, by reaching for the placebo effect fleetingly afforded by trainer change, managerial move or in this case a fight in his home town. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Bobby Gunn and James Toney in a room. Never going to be tea and biscuits.
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on February 24, 2012 at 10:18 amIt may surprise some readers to learn Bobby Gunn causes the biggest spike in readership whenever I cobble (do you see what I did there) together a news or opinion piece on the plucky prizefighter. Avoyd Mayweather holds nothing on the scrapper once spectacularly referred to as “the most ferocious fighter since Jack Dempsey” ahead of a one round mauling at the fists of Enzo Maccarinelli. He also fought Tomasz Adamek for another portion of the Cruiserweight title so his notoriety isn’t entirely hollow. I ducked any coverage of his bare-knuckle contests on principle but I must confess to a curious interest in his next bout. A clash with James Toney. Yes, the real one. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Povetkin still looking for the World but now without an Atlas.
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on February 24, 2012 at 9:21 amMuhammad Ali was 32 years old when he Rumbled in the Jungle in 1974. His victory considered all the more miraculous given his veteran status and the power of youth presumed to reside with George Foreman. There are many who feel he should have retired at that zenith. How times change. On Saturday night another 32-year-old, Alexander Povetkin, he of the callow face and quiet demeanour, will belatedly try to step from the shadows of the brothers Ukraine. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” Heavyweight rigor mortis continues; Mormeck v Wladimir
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Sports on October 10, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Look around any garden centre, walk-in bath store or drug rehabilitation unit and you will probably find a big lug willing to suggest he remains a contender. Many of them will be unfamiliar in appearance. Don’t let their seeming impotence, age or lack of vim discourage you. Embrace your quarry when you find them, ignore their venerable state, gloss over their lack of lucidity or form because within your arms you likely hold the guy Wladimir Klitschko will pursue after 39-year-old Jean Marc Mormeck collects his pension annuity in December. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: What a tangled web we weave. Tarver and Fury practice to deceive
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on March 10, 2011 at 11:55 am
There is a hierarchy to everything. Whether it be a pack of wolves, heavyweights or journalists. No demographic or social organism exists without either a class system or a distinct pyramid of significance or achievement. In the wild, the theory of evolution demands this hierarchy is structured upon one simple principle. ‘Survival of the fittest’. Thus, the alpha animal remains so while ever he has the strength to repel younger aspirants. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Its unofficial, Haye v Harrison is on
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on July 30, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Now some would say I know precious little about boxing, others are less flattering, but one thing I do know for certain is – it takes two to make a fight. By my reckoning, and with some reliance on my Casio fx-100c, I am able to announce the inevitability of a clash between David Haye and irksome veteran Audley Harrison later this year. This isn’t based upon any inside knowledge, just the inescapable truth that all other roads are now closed for Haye. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Vitali Klitschko to fight Shannon Briggs, the prosecution rests
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on July 29, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I wrote recently in at least partial defence of the brothers Klitschko. Excusing some of their benevolent matchmaking as the inevitable by-product of their misfortune of being resident in arguably the weakest era in living memory. Following on with the theme of that piece, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry at the announcement by Shannon Briggs that he will suspend his acting career long enough to tackle Klitschko the elder in Germany in October. Thankfully, Briggs can punch. Because he brings no other discernible form or currency to the match. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Sakio Bika, a ghost from Calzaghe’s past returns to the fore
In Boxing, Contender Series, Fight Previews, Sports on July 29, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Debate about the substance of Joe Calzaghe’s career will enthrall boxing fans for decades to come, his standing will ebb and flow with the passage of time and in all likelihood forever divide opinion thus – he was an all-time great who dominated his division for 10 years or, alternatively, he was a great fighter with a weak resume who ‘cherry-picked’ his way to retirement. When I look back on his career as Donald McRae in-depth interview with Calzaghe for Boxing News encouraged me to this morning, I don’t point to the Lacy fight, the Kessler war or the Hopkins victory as the night or nights which define Joe the fighter, nor do they provide helpful synopsis of his career. I think for so many reasons his brawl with Cameroon-born Australian hard man Sakio Bika epitomised his career more than any other single fight. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Laugh or cry, matchmaking with the Klitschkos
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Sports on July 23, 2010 at 3:59 pm
As a boxing traditionalist, the Klitschko brothers prove something of a troublesome enigma to me. Resplendent though they are at the top of the heavyweight mountain, their individual and collective resumes feature nothing but a procession of mediocrity – some of whom the physically gifted Ukrainians have conspired to lose to. But I cannot always count defeats against them, as an advocate of risk taking, defeats are the inevitable byproduct are they not? Risk? What risk? You see, for every argument I make against them, there is objective counsel to the contrary. News Sam Peter may replace the perpetually injured Alexander Povetkin in the Wladimir Klitschko’s September 11th defence yet more evidence to pour over. Do we laugh or cry, empathise or chastise? Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Long and winding road. Six years since the BBC dumped Audley
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Olympic Boxing, Prizefighter, Sports, TSS.com Archive on June 25, 2010 at 9:48 am
Precious few heavyweights polarise opinion in the way Audley Harrison does. Maybe that is part of the fascination with him. Maybe that enigmatic quality is what draws observers back to the story despite a series of tame defeats to mediocre fighters. The Mona Lisa is neither the most beautiful subject nor the most technically perfect painting but it endures as the most famous artwork in history (arguably) because of the interpretation her expression is open to. It isn’t definite. It has depth beyond the brush strokes da Vinci swabbed across the canvas. Much like Harrison, who has conjured few moments of brilliance during his own career on the canvas and yet holds a depth of fascination few others can match. However, despite the critics and the years completed since his first low point of being dropped by the BBC he is on the brink of the title shot he told us all along he would get to. Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: Whats wrong with boxing? Adding the letters P, P and V to Tua v Barrett.
In Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Sports on June 24, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I like David Tua. I shared the dream once. I threw him up as another fighter Tyson ducked in his shambolic 1990′s reincarnation. He shook up heavyweights; he was fast, dangerous and busy. Obviously, that was all before he got his mandatory ranking, hibernated and then froze versus Lennox Lewis – since then he’s been dormant, injured, uninterested – but is now repackaged, remotivated and back in the lucrative American market, or so he hopes we believe. But Pay-Per-View at $24.95 against Monte Barrett, the guy who lives in a tent in front of the heavyweight top 25 towers, is available on 24 hour call out and has a key emblem on his nightwear? Really? Read the rest of this entry »
Boxing: David Haye in Orwellian about turn; Audley not Vitali or Wladimir next?
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Prizefighter, Sports on June 23, 2010 at 12:32 pm
It was meant to be different. That was the tag-line. The sedentary waters of the heavyweight division were to be purified. David Haye wanted to fight the best heavyweights straight away, he didn’t want to procrastinate, to manoeuvre. He just wanted to know if he was the best, prove it or fail. Money was secondary. Challenge was everything. Boxing’s downtrodden masses craved the Utopia Haye was selling. He evangelised about bypassing promoters, side-stepping sanctioning bodies and the established order. Boxing is about the fighters not men in suits he might have said. He founded this alternate reality. Hayemaker. Fighters flocked to his rallying cry. Pretty girls flushed, forums hummed, fans cheered. Now, with a portion of the establishment in his possession – the WBA belt - and an unexpected level of renown that now enables him to accumulate £1-3 million pay-days for the type of rudimentary defence he once denounced, the urge to corner a Klitschko in a ring, or even at the top of an elevator has evidently subsided.
The Entertainer – Bradley Pryce back at Welterweight against Bami
In British Boxing, Fight Previews, Prizefighter, Sports on June 23, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Bradley Pryce is arguably the United Kingdom’s best value for money fighter, a telling attribute in these austere times and he will next month return to something approaching his most productive weight class when it is reported he will tackle veteran former European champion Ted Bami at the classic 147 pound limit. Despite his less than pristine personal life as a young professional Pryce has always left everything in the ring come fight night from back in his days as a string-bean Lightweight, his fatigued victory over Gavin Down at 140 pounds, his compulsive dust-up with Michael Jennings through to his victory over loud-mouth Anthony Small at Light-Middleweight. Pryce has dug deep countless times, snapped unbeaten records when ‘booked’ for defeat and at 29, still has time to do more with his talent. Read the rest of this entry »
