Dan Azeez batters veteran Rocky Fielding in 8

Dan Azeez, now 18-0 (12ko), successfully defended his British Light-Heavyweight title and added the Commonwealth title with a methodical and ultimately destructive performance against Rocky Fielding at the Bournemouth International Centre. The fight was made at the intersection of their respective career arcs and proved to be a little too late for Fielding, who now stares long and hard into the wilderness beyond professional boxing. It has been a good career, the Autumn of which sadly hindered by the pandemic.

33-year-old Azeez is refreshing both in the level of activity he boasts and in the humility of his outlook. Eager to pursue competitive fights, the late bloomer from London is now drawing attention and respect. American trainer Buddy McGirt has joined the team and evidently sees a fighter with polished fundamentals, a good attitude and prospects beyond British domestic level.

The fixture was strategic in the making and designed to platform Azeez and to decorate his resume with a known name, despite the pretext of Rocky Fielding’s decline, his performance remains a disappointment. Circumstances may be in play that are not in the public domain, but not only did he miss weight by a pound and opted not to try and lose it, he looked fleshy and lacking in self-belief throughout the fight.

There was a script. Azeez read his part and delivered a well-rounded performance. Fielding seemed to accept his supporting role too.

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December 18, 2022 0

Azeez and Fielding meet at one of boxing’s oldest crossroads

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At every crossroads that leads to the future, tradition has placed ten thousand men to guard the past.
Maurice Maeterlinck, Playwright, 1862-1949

British and Commonwealth Light-Heavyweight Champion Dan Azeez defends his two historical belts this weekend against veteran former Super-Middleweight WBA titlist Rocky Fielding at the Bournemouth International Centre on England’s South coast. An archetypal crossroads encounter, the fight narrative pitches the ageing Fielding against the emerging Azeez. Despite only two birthdays seperating the two men.

It is a contest with promise. Complimentary styles and well-matched protagonists. Both have much to gain, and defeat will shift perceptions too.

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December 16, 2022 0

Warrington and the chaos beyond a loss

There is an uneasy solemnity that drapes, inky black, on those standing beside a beaten champion. Neon lights trace across drunken faces outside the ropes, microphones are readied and cornermen wipe sweat from opponent’s shoulders and blood from brows. Rivals embrace. Affirming their mutual respect. The imposters of triumph and disaster are met. Doctrine is observed. Doctors assured.

It is a peculiar, haunting void. A type of professional grieving commences. Sermons are offered. The flush of adrenalin weakens. Reality stirs. Those closest search for reason and for words of reassurance. Rendered motionless. Speechless too, but for familiar cliche. Startled by their own dependency, they know not where to be, where to look or what to do. The former champion still prowls, still sweats, still fighting the onrushing truth. Into the chaos beyond defeat, into the collapse of the exit plan, the lost income and stark realisation of a peak now passed, many more than just the deposed champion are plunged.

A defeat can often be a type of reckoning. Always unwelcome, it searches for the hidden truths. The miles not run, the sessions missed or, as Josh Warrington discovered on Saturday night, the irreversible signs of age. Perhaps noted in the convenience of silence or with a momentary locking of eyes, but dismissed or disguised in the privacy of training nevertheless.

As the boxing truism insists; fighters are the first to know but the last to say.

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December 11, 2022 0

Lopez leaps into world class after winning IBF title in rugged encounter

Luis Alberto Lopez, the little Mexican with an unsettling, maniacal grin, took the IBF Featherweight belt from Leeds’ Josh Warrington in an absorbing contest in front of the Yorkshireman’s partisan fans tonight. A triumph built on unshakeable self-confidence, heavy hands and a chaotic style that baffled and battered the 32-year-old Warrington for sufficient rounds to eek out a narrow points victory.

English judge Howard Foster scored a 114-114 draw, but two other judges saw 115-113 to the visiting Lopez despite the widespread expectation of a benevolent ‘hometown’ verdict circulating on social media.

In the end, with swing rounds in the 1st and 6th, the fight could’ve ended a draw, a 115-114 could be found on this obsever’s notepad, but Lopez felt like the winner if there was to be one.

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December 11, 2022 0

Intersection. Josh Warrington defends against anarchic Luis Lopez

There is a crazy little Mexican man coming to Leeds on Saturday night. His name is Luis Alberto Lopez. A fighter with rocks in either hand, a wild glint in his eyes and zero shits given about the reputation of the man he challenges, IBF Featherweight champion Josh Warrington.

Their battle may be short, it may go the distance. A tantalising unpredictability pervades. Lopez’s style doesn’t lend itself to the science of a gambler’s algorithms nor the made to measure tailoring often afforded British attractions by promoters protecting their cut and that uncertainty provides a welcome frisson of excitement.

There are ingredients present for a blue-collar classic.

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December 7, 2022 0

Pretty Boy Kelly in joyous, redemptive triumph

Irrespective of how the remainder of Josh ‘Pretty Boy’ Kelly’s career unfolds, aged 28, and with a deep reservoir of ability, there should be many more stories as yet untold, his win on Friday night may forever remain the most satisfying. A victory over local-rival Troy Williamson secured the British Light-Middleweight title, call it Super-Welterweight if you wish, and provided Kelly with an escape from the claustrophobia of the past.

Kelly’s talent has never been in doubt, but success in boxing requires more than talent, however luxurious it may appear. Self-belief, perseverance and resolve are all necessary qualities for the boundaries of a fighter’s potential to be stretched to its limit. In defeat to David Avanesyan almost two years ago, Kelly’s inflated self-belief was punctured. Fighters like Kelly, who adopt a cape of arrogance as part of their fighting persona, as slick counterpunchers so often do, feel the exposure of defeat more acutely than even the proudest of warriors. Avanesyan had proved too resolute, too organised and too strong. Cutting, dropping and breaking the resistance of Kelly in six rounds, cornerman Adam Booth throwing in the towel as his charge unravelled.

Avanesyan has progressed subsequently and is now signed to fight one of the stars of the Welterweight division, having left the vanquished Kelly in the darkness of defeat and brooding self-doubt. Until Friday.

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December 5, 2022 0

Chisora the absorber, pummelled for pay and our ghoulish perversion

Derek Chisora has been a brave and capable heavyweight. His bravery was the great enabler of his third fight with Tyson Fury. The prolonged pummelling he endured entirely unnecessary.

It is the nature of the sport of boxing, the pursuit of glory at potentially grave personal cost, both the explicit and the disguised, that participants and observers are pushed to their extremes of tolerance. The third meeting between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora for the Heavyweight title was a luminous example in this particular collection of boxing’s gloomiest encounters. All involved, from the last spectator to those carrying buckets of spit, are complicit in permitting and encouraging Saturday’s prolonged brutality.

As expected, Derek Chisora was pummelled for thirty or more minutes. The masquerade of competitiveness tossed aside from the second round. Reality replaced salesmanship. Facts displaced fantasy.

Predictable. Pitiless.

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December 3, 2022 0

Chisora, British Boxing’s favourite anti-hero, to dance once more

“A circus is like a mother in whom one can confide and who rewards and punishes.” 
Burt Lancaster, Actor, 1913-1994

One of the staple attractions of British boxing’s wandering circus will dance for the public again this weekend. His name is Derek Chisora and though gallant, he is now a depleted fighter. Weary from a decade of tugging at the tether boxing, with her beguiling promise of riches and adulation, ties to its most daring sons. The incessant blows, the sparring, the wins, the losses, the wear and tear of life as a professional athlete has worn away Chisora’s vibrancy, as those punishments always do. Eventually, there will be a reckoning. Repayment on the debt will be necessary. Passage to retirement never tempts ageing fighters as much as the whisper to carry on. There is always another pay day, another town, another spotlight. A fighter’s diminishing returns, the missed cues, the forgotten lines, are inconvenient truths all vested parties routinely ignore.

Although the soon to be 39-year-old boxing out of choice not economic necessity is a reassurance, his continuance remains troubling and poses a elevated risk for him and the sport he has excelled in. He gambles the quantity and quality of his tomorrows for the bounty of today, the roar of the crowd and the glory of a title that has been beyond his reach when younger and fresher.

Nevertheless, a man handsomely rewarded for years of durability should not still be chasing giants at his advanced age and with twelve painful defeats to his name. And in a more organised meritocracy, champions as capable as Tyson Fury should not be sending him contracts. Particularly in an era in which two fights a year is a busy calendar. But boxing isn’t that utopia.

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