October 2023 – BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK

_{First published on BigFightWeekend.com}

In retirement, Pete Rademacher, a pioneering spirit who boxed for the heavyweight title in his first professional bout, helped to invent a divider for swimming pools that reduced turbulence between lanes. The idea being that each competitor could optimise their own performance unhindered by the wake created by a rival carving through the water in an adjacent lane.

Tyson Fury, boxing’s number one big man, fights Francis Ngannou, the once preeminent heavyweight in Mixed Martial Arts, on Saturday in Saudi Arabia. A curiosity solicited on the turbulence the latter’s ‘crossing of lanes’ proposes to create and reliant on the resulting voyeurism of the lucrative mainstream market.

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Article also appears at BigFightWeekend.com

I suppose Marvin Gaye didn’t really care about Cassius Clay recording an album at Columbia Records in 1963 or Smokin’ Joe Frazier singing First Round Knockout for Motown in 1975. Hard to imagine Marlon Brando was unduly concerned that Jake LaMotta played the bartender in The Hustler or that Tupac worried about Nigel Benn’s collaboration with Pack on the 1990 song Stand and Fight. It only made 61 in the UK Charts after all.

And so, perhaps, boxing, the sprawling, dimly lit dystopia that it is, shouldn’t worry too much about MisFits and the entertainment it imparts to those dimly lit enough to pay for it. Aside from the copious amounts of money MisFits boxing generates it also appears uniquely able to both entice the casual and enrage the aficionados with the ease of a Bill Nighy suit fitting.

The weekend’s bill in Manchester showcased two of the niche’s preeminent forces; Tommy Fury, famous for sharing a father with Tyson Fury and his appearance on a reality show and KSI, who is good at video games and has ‘form’ in this peculiar space. A bizarre schism in which boxing, WWE and the world of YouTube influencers co-exist in an orgy of nonsense.

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A condensed version of this article was first published at BigFightWeekend.com

In the Spring of 79, deep in the bowels of the City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest Football Club, Brian Clough waited to conduct his media obligations. It was after 10 o’clock, in the aftermath of his team’s 3-3 draw with German champions Cologne in the Semi-Final of the European Cup. A result that meant the East Midlands club would need to win in Germany to progress in their maiden season competing alongside Europe’s elite.

Bristling with self-assurance, and as a man for whom miracles were customary, Clough refused to succumb to the notion that the team’s failure to secure a first leg lead meant their barely conceivable adventure in the competition would soon be at an end. He appeared emboldened by the doubt of others. As his team washed the clotted mud from their bodies and the Forest faithful wandered into the darkness beyond the floodlights, Clough closed the post-match TV interview with a lingering look toward the camera, a wry smile spilling across his face and the words; “I hope anybody’s not stupid enough to write us off.”

As Leeds’ hero Josh Warrington was whacked to the canvas on Saturday night by a series of unanswered hooks from the WBA Champion, and proud Nottingham man, Leigh Wood, having spent much of the completed rounds dominating his now conqueror, that quote drifted back to mind.

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Article first published on gambling.com

This weekend’s WBA World Featherweight title bout between current champion Leigh Wood, 27-3 (16ko) and former IBF title holder Josh Warrington 31-2 (8ko) at the Sheffield Arena is one rich in competitive promise.

Flawed and feisty, the pair share much but arrive in Sheffield in wildly divergent form.

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