Posts Tagged ‘david haye’
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: 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: 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: In form and active; the path less trodden to the Klitschkos
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Reports, Sports on March 5, 2012 at 1:14 pmFifty-five thousand people gathered at the weekend to watch Wladimir Klitschko render the once proud Cruiserweight Champion of the World, Jean Marc-Mormeck, even more ineffective than those with some foresight believed he’d prove when the fight was signed. Size is not the only currency in the heavyweight division, it is important to remember Jess Willard, at 6ft 6 inches and 235 pounds, was pounded to defeat by Jack Dempsey and later Primo Carnera who weighed 270 pounds and was of comparably lofty perspective when Max Baer inflicted a similar drubbing. At nearly 40 years of age, inactive for 15 months and struggling to stretch the tape even to six feet, Mormeck was however, spectacularly unqualified for the adventure he signed up for. 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: Fur Coat and No Knickers? David Haye retires
In Boxing on October 11, 2011 at 9:10 am
Any consideration of David Haye’s career is usually accompanied by a track from my internal Jukebox. It isn’t McFadden and Whitehead’s Aint No Stopping Us Now; his entrance tune, nor is it From Russia with Love, primarily because his nemesis was Ukrainian, I tend to hear the chorus from Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn representing as is does the conflict between his achievements and failings. 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: 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: Harrison v Haye – why it should happen
In Boxing, British Boxing, Olympic Boxing, Prizefighter, Sports on June 30, 2010 at 10:34 am
Despite David Haye’s protestations to the contrary the prospect of this unlikely heavyweight prizefight remains the talking point of the day in the dungeons of the internet’s boxing forums. Audley Harrison has, afterall, already sacrificed the European title in the belief that he will secure the all-British world heavyweight title fight he and television network Sky Sports appear to crave. Debuting his guest column, John Cascells reflects on the fight; why it may prove to be more challenging than the cynics presume and why he is sure it will make for must-see television. 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: 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.
Harrison, Haye and Klitschko. Among the madness, bluff and silence is there a fight to be found?
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Olympic Boxing, Sports on June 11, 2010 at 10:56 pm
In an era before nutritionists, public relations and conditioners, during that simplistic period when heavyweights ran, hit-bag, sparred, chopped wood and often took a stiff drink or three the night before a fight it is hard to imagine how they would have viewed the flimsy media battle being contested by heavyweight trio David Haye, Klitschko and heaven help us Audley Harrison. It may be nostalgic romanticism to suggest fighters like Jack Dempsey or Jim Jeffries simply signed to fight an opponent, trained and then settled it in an often gruelling, unforgiving fight, but it is with some confidence that I propose they wouldn’t have been comfortable with the shallow misinformation all parties appear to be peddling even if avoiding opponents is an oft-overlooked aspect of boxing at the beginning of the 20th century too. Read the rest of this entry »
John McDermott: “I don’t want any favouritism, just whoever WINS, wins!”
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Sports on June 4, 2010 at 9:59 am
I met John McDermott once. He was standing at the back of the press rows the night David Haye got beaten by Carl Thompson. An evening more notable for him because he saw Mark Krence flattened by an imported journeyman that looked likely to rule the boxing butcher out of their proposed Eliminator, a contest, John lamented, for which he’d already sold £10,000 of tickets. And that snatched conversation typifies the kind of circumstantial misfortune he has laboured under for his entire professional career. In his forthcoming rematch with Tyson Fury I have a growing suspicion the genial giant may yet have his moment in the sun and overcome that sense of never being in the right place at the right time once and for all. Read the rest of this entry »
Old? Check. Fat? Check. Unambitious? Check. Brian Nielsen next for Vitaly?
In Boxing, Fight Reports, Mike Tyson, Shop on June 1, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Did you hear the one about Vitaly Klitschko and the hungry, young contender? No, nor did I. Admittedly, Vitaly Klitschko hasn’t fought during a particularly glowing period for heavyweights. His tenure, interrupted by a now mysteriously cured knee problem, as the leading heavyweight began when Lennox Lewis retired and has continued through soporific contests with Danny Williams, Kirk Johnson, Corrie Sanders, Sam Peter, Juan Carlos Gomez, Chris Arreola and latterly Albert Sosnowski. So maybe, the revelation Danish pastry Brian Nielsen is making a comeback aged 45 will be welcome news in the Klitschko castle if nowhere else. Read the rest of this entry »
Sosnowski, Subbuteo, Sanders, Snooker and me
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Reports, Mike Tyson, Sports on May 25, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I’ve always found an attic or loft to be a fascinating place. It probably originates from the joyous isolation it provided me as a child, resplendent with snooker table, dart board, train set and Subbuteo it was a place of dreams, solace and make-believe. On the baize I was Davis AND Higgins, on the Astropitch I was everyone from Peru to Peterborough and with darts in hand I was toothless Jocky Wilson and the Crafty Cockney.
Feted, hated, fated? Is Audley stepping closer to defining Haye fight?
In Boxing, British Boxing, Olympic Boxing, Sports on May 24, 2010 at 3:12 pm
There has been something of the David Icke about Audley Harrison throughout his decade as a prominent heavyweight. Fuelled and demonstrated by a paradoxical cocktail of delusion, acute self-awareness and paranoia. Qualities which ostracised him from the boxing public and allowed the media to portray him as the villain, the idiot and the clown in his own one-man pantomime. But like all cabaret shows, it aint over til the fat lady sings and maybe, just maybe, said fat lady is back stage sipping honey and lemon as talk of a Harrison v Haye contest gathers pace. Read the rest of this entry »
John Ruiz v David Haye will be a thriller
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Previews, Mike Tyson, Sports on November 10, 2009 at 1:04 pm
It will not prove as easy for newly crowned WBA Heavyweight champion David Haye to sell tickets to his mandated clash with American John Ruiz in the spring as the David v Goliath showdown proved last weekend. But for all the doubters, I’d like to encourage everyone to visit YouTube and refresh their preconceptions about the 37 year old former two-time WBA champion. In short Ruiz is a different beast to the much maligned jab and grab merchant he’s often described as. Read the rest of this entry »
In the shadow of giants, Sexton wins
In Boxing, British Boxing, Fight Reports, Mike Tyson, Sports on November 9, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Poor old Sam Sexton, not enough that he derailed the Cinderella Man story of Belfast hard man Martin Rogan once, controversially of course, but last weekend he returned to the white hot atmosphere of the Odyssey Arena to thoroughly dismantle the Rogan again. And within 24 hours his considerable achievement was completely outshone by some David v Goliath showdown. Read the rest of this entry »
