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

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

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

Timeless. Priceless. Wardley guts Gorman in 3 to become British Champion

Where there's a will there's a way
Proverb

As a thick snake of blood oozed from a cut on Fabio Wardley’s busted nose, punches smeared and splattered it across his brow and cheek. His teeth grinding into his mouth piece beneath. A giant, visible to Wardley through a mask of warm claret, lumbered closer, the possessor of greater experience, heft and the initiative. The Ipswich man grimaced but chose to walk forward. Toward the tumult. Where many would hold or fold, Wardley elected to fight. Not to box, but to fight. In that distinction, in Wardley’s willingness to risk when vulnerable and hurt, the British Heavyweight title, with all its abundant history, was won.

Gorman proved unable to match or repel Wardley’s spirited response to the success he’d enjoyed in the first round and fell to defeat in the third. The white towel of surrender fluttering on to the canvas to confirm the fighter’s shallower resistance was spent. By then, Gorman had been on the floor twice in the second and once in the third.

Wardley’s youthful combination of flaws and enterprise suggest many equally entertaining nights lay ahead.

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November 27, 2022 0

In the footsteps of Ali. Katie Taylor eyes Croke Park crescendo

Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart.
W.B. Yeats, Irish Poet, 1865-1939

Katie Taylor answered in her characteristic manner. Certain. Humble. Promoter Eddie Hearn waxed lyrical. Ignoring the boos of progressively deeper octave; “Ireland, Croke Park. Serrano. Has to be. If not, someone else. But it is Ireland next.” Taylor’s Irish eyes smiled, warming to a familiar squint. Sweat still springs. Cheeks thickened. Her aching hands resting on silk hips. As the questions were posed and the cliches shared, hundreds still loitered among the strewn plastic cups and the Saturday night spilt at their feet. Taylor had done as expected; beating the tall, organised Argentinian Karen Elizabeth Carabajal for all the Lightweight belts by unanimous points decision. Knockouts, the violent climax ticket buyers crave still stubbornly elusive.

Still friends and strangers sway, arms entwined, a joyful scrummage. The shrewd and restless twist their necks to listen as they clambered for the exits. The nocturnes and neon of the London night, the rationed taxi cabs and their prodigal sibling of the morning’s regret quickening their stride. Irish tricolours stretch and fall. Cheers, drunk with vowels tumble down toward the ring and the garden of microphones.

Katie Taylor fills arenas. And her eyes are on the biggest of all. One with both history and meaning for the people of Ireland.

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November 11, 2022 0

Barrett falls to Rakhimov but exposes his weaknesses

Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov won the vacant IBF Super-Featherweight title in Abu-Dhabi Saturday night in the latest in a sequence of major fights to take place in the Middle East. A venue that provides convenient fight times for global audiences and inconvenient questions about money for promoters. For Zelfa Barrett, a fluid counter puncher from Manchester, the fight offered an opportunity to confirm his ability at World level. One he took, despite the disappointment of defeat in the 9th round.

Barrett’s success with left and rights to the body, stinging right uppercuts to head and body and a willingness to punch in combination despite his movement based strategy and determination to avoid short-range exchanges, brought a points lead heading toward the championship rounds.

Pressure fighters like Rakhimov don’t tend to worry about the minutiae of scorecards.

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November 5, 2022 0

Veteran Wilder punches toward future greatness

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.
Bob Fitzsimmons, 1862-1917

It is the nature of the meandering river of life that the vistas and postcards of the past can seem more lustrous than our current view. That which has passed becomes richer for the embellishment our memory imposes and the present dulls as our optimism dissipates with grey hair and midlife. Applied to boxing, it exaggerates our heroes and denigrates their successors.

This manifests as “Tommy levels Floyd”, “nobody beats peak Iron Mike”, or for older observers, “nobody punched like the Brown Bomber”. Ask Eddie Murphy. These opinions root deeply, becoming fixed in the landscape of our outlook. It closes us to the brilliance of now. The genius around us. Things new can still be great and may one day, if we are spared long enough, be the fixations of our future. Best to embrace the enjoyment they provide as if still young ourselves, than diminish them in the kangaroo court of our rose-filtered nostalgia.

Saturday’s knockout win, accumulated with a single right hand that travelled around 18 inches, continued to confirm that future history will smile on Deontay Wilder in much the same way it romantacises those bygone gladiators.

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October 16, 2022 0

Joyce’s chin, otherworldly, is an asset and a deterrent

The weekend reluctantly succumbs to a grumbling Monday, children scramble onto back seats and the drizzle of late September sneers at those too lazy to cut the lawn the day before. In the ensuing silence, thoughts, ideas compete, ebbing and flowing for those of us wrestling with obligation, the should dos afforded by time and solitude.

Boxing lurches in to frame among the unwashed breakfast pots, the dogs that need exercise and the bill that needs paying. It isn’t always this way. Golovkin and Canelo III came and went leaving little fat to chew on by the Monday, despite the generational greatness of the pairing. A tired episode in a great rivalry. The money laden, but inferior, Godfather III if you will. Years too late.

Into the wash of their encounter stepped Shakur Stevenson, the next, next Pretty Boy. He has predecessors as would be successor to Floyd and his Uber-wealth. 25 years old and 22 ounces over the limit. He won. Cemented his status. But missing weight brought more headlines than the fight. The nature of the modern mediums. Words, failure, toxicity create more wake than quality, preparation, success.

And so it fell to the heavyweights in Manchester, England. The two nice guys called Joe, Joyce and Parker, met in a crossroads bout. Was this the top of Joyce’s arc or could he continue his climb versus Parker, a man who had soared with Joshua and Ruiz already? Expectations had been modest. Joyce, huge, lumbering but effective. Parker, stout, sharper and seasoned.

Both excelled. And their bruising encounter revealed a new player at the top of the division.

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September 26, 2022 0

When the time comes. Golovkin and the age old problem

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, 
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

I sat perched on the edge of the sofa, waiting for one of the three greatest middleweights of my life time to enter the ring. Twenty or more title fights sprawled out on his record, a long sequence of victories, a red mark or two failing to diminish a reputation as the best 160 pounder of his generation. And perhaps, whisper it quietly, the best of all.

Aged 40, doubt remained. Such was my intoxication with boxing, the 4am ring walk, the obscure channel, the pay per view fee, nothing would dissuade me from tuning in. A dangerous opponent, younger, fresher, stronger too maybe? He had it all to do.

The year was 2005. The fight was Hopkins versus Eastman. Much has changed since. Much has stayed the same.

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September 18, 2022 0

Usyk glowers, grins and out-wits Joshua once more

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect

George Bernard Shaw, Playwright 1856-1950

As I glared at the blank screen before me, thoughts on Oleksandr Usyk’s triumph over Anthony Joshua still swirling. Theories, meaning, the rumination of others flitting in and out of view and ear shot. The starkness of the victory I had seen, the troubling thread of doubt dangled by one or two who’d witnessed a closer fight weaving through my mind. Happen-chance and necessity led me to a live BBC concert from the Royal Albert Hall. An exceptionally gifted singer, Shelea, was shaking the old dome to its foundations. Performing in the long shadow cast by Aretha Franklin. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. She sounded uninhibited, undeterred by the shoes in which she trod. Empowered by the responsibility. Emboldened by the audience before her.

It struck me that the quest for the respect of others, of history, of his rivals, of those who would take what he had, of the street life he hoped never to disgrace but eternally escape, of being validated by wealth, influence has been a constant in Anthony Joshua’s professional career. A weighty burden too.

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August 22, 2022 0

Fury dominates and then destroys Whyte in six

First appeared on BigFightWeekend.com

It would be cruel to suggest 76 years young singer Don McLean moved his feet quicker in his pre-fight rendition of American Pie than London bruiser Dillian Whyte did before being struck by a Tyson Fury right uppercut, but it wouldn’t be far from the truth. Deconstructing Whyte’s reputation based on the ease with which Fury deposited the floundering challenger on the canvas in front of a baying Wembley crowd, high on freedom and other confections, will be a popular undertaking but unjust too. Observers are encouraged to refrain.

The division today isn’t 1970s deep. It never was before Ali, Foreman and their many contemporaries and it likely never will be again, and as such the perennial comparison is redundant. Within his generation, Whyte possessed a credible record and a consensus place in the top half a dozen big men.

That Whyte failed to land a punch of note in six rounds speaks to Fury’s dominance of that same generation more than the limitations of the self-made ‘Body Snatcher’. But defeat brings cynicism. Dominance, as Fury’s predecessor, Wladimir Klitschko found, invariably does too.

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April 23, 2022 0

Khan and Brook cast long shadows from their last sunset

Ageing is natural. It happens to all of us. I just always want to look like myself, even if that’s an older version of myself.

Halle Berry, Actor (1966- )

In the summer of 2004 a boxer called Amir Khan, aged just 17, the possessor of unfathomable hand speed and armed with a quiver of jabs, a favourite grandson’s smile and a vest beneath which beat a fearless heart, became a household name in Britain when his voyage to an unlikely Silver medal at the Athens Olympics was broadcast live on terrestrial television. Fight fans, sports fans, grandmas, uncles, friends, all bore witness to Britain’s sole entrant.

On Saturday night, much closer to home than the Greek capital and now a retired veteran of 35, Khan climbed the steps to the ring for the final time. The loneliness of his entrance in to the public’s consciousness as a boy all those years ago reflected back in a brutal departure from the prize ring. Referee Victor Loughlin showing sufficient mercy to save a wilting Khan from a pitiless and increasingly rampant Kell Brook in the sixth round.

A fight 17 years in the making was over in 17 minutes.

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February 20, 2022 0

Cheeseman and the deal with the devil

Every fighter has a relationship with sacrifice. Offering something of their unseen tomorrow for the conspicuous glory of today. As a witness to the transaction, boxing fans marvel at the willingness of those inside the ring who make the exchange for our entertainment. Light-Middleweight Ted Cheeseman, who succumbed to the fists of the Troy Williamson and relinquished his British title last night, is a man that embraces this truth.

Not for the first time, the courageous former champion departed from the stage a little less than he’d entered it. The crowd and the audience at home staggered by the action Cheeseman and Williamson had provided in 10 gruelling rounds of thudding combat.

Cheeseman’s tumultuous encounter with Williamson evoked memories of those in whose footsteps they trod, Jamie Moore and Matt Macklin most prominent among them, and proved a fitting prelude to the night’s main attraction over in Las Vegas, where a fellow brother in arms willingly gave a piece of his future self in the pursuit of his own glory.

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October 10, 2021 0

Usyk the Great uproots the Joshua tree

And so it was, the giant visited by defeat once more. Anthony Joshua lost for the second time and the collection of party garlands he’d hoped to parlay into an undisputed clash with Tyson Fury at some future point were passed to a new custodian. The fight proved revelatory for those trusting in the age old adage “a good big un beats a good little un.” and, further, revealed limitations in Joshua’s technical competence and confirmed Oleksandr Usyk’s unquestionable superiority.

As night follows day, the dissection of Joshua’s performance began before it had even ended. Sport in the spotlight insists all losers are finished, all conquered champions exposed. It is an incessant and usually unqualified scrutiny. True, problems have grown like weeds around and within Joshua’s performances; where once there was a youthful vigour and self belief, knots of indecision and timidity now prevail.

Joshua remains a dangerous heavyweight and there is scope still for improvement on the disappointment of Saturday,. Boxing fans must be wary of dismissing those who venture to fight their peers, and lose. He took his lumps and bumps, his defeat, with humility and grace.

They too, are admirable qualities.

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September 26, 2021 0

“I coulda had class”. Fighters, films and the fix

For cinema goers, the image of a boxer being coerced into losing a fight or consoled in the aftermath, is all too familiar. A convenient vehicle deployed by film makers, since the advent of ‘talkies’ in the 1920’s. From John Wayne to Charlie Chaplin, actors have been knitting their brows as earnest pugs buckling beneath the guilt that ensues. Electing to forgo the integrity they cherished, in exchange for easy money or the promise of richer fruit down the line, is a choice much easier to reject in theory and detached from the starkness of life as a prizefighter from the 1930s to the late 1950s.

As Brando immortalised in The Godfather, fighters, like others in position of influence and value, were made offers they couldn’t refuse.

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September 13, 2021 0

And the band played on. Boxing’s voyage to the abyss

Rogers Morton, a prominent figure in American politics in the 1970s, once said, while serving as Campaign Manager for Gerald Ford’s ailing push for the White House and pressed on how he intended to salvage lost momentum; “I’m not going to re-arrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.” A quote that would outlive the Statesman, both in political influence and life, he would succumb to cancer in 1979, and one that became synonymous with actions deemed superficial and redundant in the face of impending disaster.

As a 58-year-old Evander Holyfield clambered back down the ring steps in Florida this weekend, a state which withdrew his license to box 17 years ago on the grounds of his diminished ability, it is easy to clamour for boxing to do something, to intervene. Thousands added their voices to the cause in the days before the ‘fight’, screened by Triller (no, me neither) and commentated on by former president and the doyenne of delusion, Donald Trump. They urged ‘boxing’ to change course, to come to its senses.

Gratefully, it took but a few seconds for Holyfield to be separated from his, if he wasn’t detached from them, or at least reality, when he arrived.

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September 13, 2021 1

Liam Williams secures his place in a gallery of the gallant

Explaining the status of any individual fight, the sense of the significance it should be afforded in the wider boxing landscape, is an undertaking for only the boldest and most patient among us. This intractable maze also makes it impossible to define fighters in the way they once were. Any argument about a fighter’s world class credentials must first be preceded by agreement on what world class actually means.

Is losing a world title fight enough or must you win one? Ken Norton never did but would give any heavyweight in history an argument. What is a world title anyway, if there are four available and others competing to be recognised? The WBA routinely acknowledge three of their own in a single weight class and list ‘champions’ few have even seen fight.

As Demetrius Andrade distorted Liam Williams’ face on Saturday night, in the way a potter might when throwing wet clay on a wheel, the notion of what makes a world class fighter, or how such status is earned, ebbed and flowed. A WBO title fight is rarely the platform for greatness, though exceptions exist, and the organisation’s mandatories, of which Williams was one such example, are not typically drawn from a consensus top 10.

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April 20, 2021 0

Rampant Benn wrecks Vargas in 90 seconds.

The acceleration in Conor Benn’s progress as a fighter is, frankly, astonishing. Samuel Vargas is not Carmen Basilio, but he’s rugged, durable and still held aspiration. He was obliterated in 90 seconds by a 24-year old with the patter of a superstar and a magnetic persona to match.

Vargas protested the stoppage, Colombian’s from the North American circuit expect to box on unless they’re laid out flat, but a degree of compassion will serve him well in the long run. There was the sense Vargas let the enemy in through the front door and Benn ran rampantly through the opening. Right hands, uppercuts and left hooks. Vargas’ eyes looked to the lights, the end would have followed had Michael Alexander not intervened.

For Benn, as with all prospects, contenders, matchmaking is key. If left to the protagonist, it will be ambitious.

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April 10, 2021 0

Sadness and truth as Herring ensures familiar end to Frampton’s career

There was a theme of sadness running through the final chapter of Carl Frampton’s outstanding career as a professional fighter this weekend. In part because of the apparent inevitability of the defeat to Jamel Herring, and in part because his story drew to a close far from home, far from the fans he loved and the family he yearns for.

Dubai, the crudely affluent capital of UAE, was an ill-fitting suit for a man who has flown highest in the traditional boxing heartlands of Belfast, Las Vegas, and Brooklyn. The location, missing the accoutrements of the historic stages and bigger broadcasters Frampton has boxed on, added to the sense of lament for a prime long since passed and the glorious nights of his twenties. A two-weight champion, with victories over Leo Santa Cruz and Nonito Donaire, Frampton eked a great deal from that fleeting peak and while the Autumn of his career has been unfulfilling, he departs in tact and with enormous respect from those he encountered.

It isn’t the ending Frampton hoped for, or perhaps deserved, but with the unrelenting tick of a fighter’s career, he hadn’t the time to wait for a post-pandemic normality to resume. Money he had, time he did not.

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April 5, 2021 0

Bika overcomes Soliman, and in the chase for a lucrative finale

It is hard to know what a Sakio Bika victory over Sam Soliman in their third encounter can mean in the long term. Aged 41 and 47 respectively there is no long term. only the here and now. The two men went at it for 8 rounds last night, Bika taking the decision unanimously following a largely dominant display over the veteran of veterans.

Bika called out Oscar DeLaHoya in the aftermath, perhaps with a taste for those who once were as opposed to those yet to be, or, more prudently, because of the zeros that will appear on the cheque the Golden Boy will write to the fighter who wins the sweepstake for his comeback.

This writer cannot fathom how DeLaHoya would turn to the 6-1 Super-Middleweight in the face of less rugged opponents with lighter fists but in the current climate it is hard to rule anything out.

Soliman will hopefully heed the call of retirement following a spirited display, albeit in the face of a naturally bigger opponent, and for Bika, it will be a tremendous satisfaction to have returned to action following a frustrating period on the sidelines. The unanimous victor received a 80-73, 79-73, 78-74 review from the three judges.

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March 31, 2021 0

Cheeseman stops Metcalf in old school war

The scrap between Ted Cheeseman and J.J. Metcalf for the British Light-Middleweight title was fought in Gibraltar. It was screened, for this writer, in high definition on a 42 inch television via the internet. It would have been equally at home had it been available on a Bakelite wireless only or fought at the Mile End Arena in the 1950s.

Two hard men, bent noses, flinty eyes sunken beneath prominent brows. One entered the ring with a ruby welt beneath his eye the other started seeping claret from his nose in the second. Cheeseman wore the white shorts, Metcalf, son of Shea Neary, a throwback fighter himself, wore the black. Just like the days of old.

A vacant British belt, the oldest in the sport, though the division is only of the modern era, the prize for the victor. The gold, the Union Jack coloured ribbon, the history, the tradition. A crown worn by Herol, Jamie Moore, Maurice Hope. It was all there.

Both had stories and both were willing to sacrifice the quality of their tomorrows for the glory of the night.

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March 27, 2021 0

David Adeleye wins in heavyweight farce, calls for Nathan Gorman next

Boxing absorbs punishment better than Oscar Bonavena. Thankfully. Most of the blows are self-inflicted. Home to the peculiar and the perverse, the notorious and nefarious, boxing has long been plagued by the foretelling of its demise. Editorials have sermonised about the end of boxing, predicting the various rocks ready to hole the ailing liner beneath the surface since the beginning of time.

And yet, by many measures, boxing is in ruder health than at any time since the time of the Four Kings. The US may lack the attractions of old, but Canelo, Joshua and co are resurrecting stadium size audiences, new platforms plead for boxing’s attention and new markets are opening up to the boxing circus.

A new variation on this customary self-harm is permitting a debuting professional, from a background in White Collar boxing, to fight against a decorated Amateur who is 20 pounds heavier and boxing his 5th fight.

That happened tonight in the UK, when David Preston was sanctioned to box David Adeleye.

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March 26, 2021 0

Saturday night at the fights; Okolie, Ortiz and two crazy guys called Lopez

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better
Richard Hooker, English theologian, 1554-1600

It would be easy to be cynical about the Lawrence Okolie story. Too much of Saturday night television has leant on the ‘journey’ of whoever the wannabe singing or dancing hopeful was that particular weekend. The tears, the back story, the setbacks, the dead grandma. It can become repetitive and contrived. But as Eddie Hearn demanded in post fight interview, following the Londoner’s exemplary victory over Krzysztof Glowacki to win the WBO title, Okolie’s tale merits retelling.

The fat kid in McDonalds, a perfectly respectable career for many let it also be said, inspired by heroes Usain Bolt and Anthony Joshua to chase something bigger, something more. Boxing, as it so often does, provided the vehicle for the revolution Okolie wanted. No barrier to entry in boxing you see. Show up, and someone will teach you, will care.

He began. And while last night represented a huge step in his career, winning a quarter of the world title, it was the first step eight years ago that required the most gumption.

Okolie wasn’t the only winner on an entertaining evening of boxing as the action swung from London to Texas.

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March 21, 2021 0

Ali v Frazier, 50 years on, still casts a shadow long enough to eclipse Fury v Joshua

I don’t think Clay will want one.
Joe Frazier answers the question of a rematch following his seminal victory over Ali in 1971.

I was born in the summer of 1973. Bawling my way in as a humbled United States left Vietnam, a few weeks before Nixon’s impeachment began and Great Britain joined the EEC it left acrimoniously in January. I arrived broadly equidistant between Muhammad Ali’s back to back encounters with Kenny Norton. I like to refer to Kenny as Kenny, I don’t really know why. Perhaps I hope it implies friendship. On that basis, Mr. Norton would probably be more appropriate, but I digress.

Kenny was of course the strapping enigma the Champ could never quite resolve, in those two fights or in their trilogy bout in ’76. By the time my interest in boxing was stirred, first by the emotive sight of Barry McGuigan walking through the mist and hot breath of Loftus Road to face Pedroza in ’85, and then the amalgam of Tyson, Balboa and Herol, Muhammad Ali was no longer an active fighter.

There he remained. Still waters. Frozen in time and placed out of sight by retirement, remembered only by the words and pictures contained on my, by then, late grandfather’s book case.

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March 4, 2021 0

BoxingWriter.co.uk Fighter of the Month – February 2021

As the world permits hope to smile, like the pale Spring sun of late February, boxing is emerging squinting and yawning from the hibernation of Winter and the grip of the COVID pandemic. Shows and events are beginning to populate the diary, fights are happening and momentum is being wrested from the inertia of lockdown.

There has been chaos too. Boxing isn’t boxing without its signature melodrama, the myopia of judges and the sanctioning bodies’ eternal shenanigans. Certainly, there was enough action committed to record to award another Fighter of The Month to follow in the steps of Ryan Garcia who won the equivalent January prize.

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March 1, 2021 0

Avanesyan has his triumph, Kelly’s loss needn’t be a disaster. If fans rally to his side

One may learn wisdom even from one’s enemies
Aristophanes, Greek Satirist, 445-385BC

It’s traditional to muse on the events of the night before on a Sunday morning. Where once it was the haze of a hangover and wondering what may have been said and done beneath the influence of alcohol, Sundays are now more typically dominated by the injustices and frustrations evoked by Saturday night boxing. In a world of the cynical and sarcastic, of the negative and voyeuristic, being motivated to write by failure, by schadenfreude is a widespread malaise.

Important then, to write when a show has produced entertainment, drama and delivered a large dose of the thunder fight fans all crave. We must, collectively, counteract the all to familiar narratives. For if we don’t, if there is no buzz to compensate fighters and promoters for taking the risk of evenly matched fights, then they will defer to the tried and trusted safety first modus operandi that plagues the sport in the modern day. Their hangover will not be worth the entertainment they share.

Last night’s show, in which the favoured Pretty Boy Josh Kelly was stopped by a 32-year-old Armenian who lives in Newark, David Avernysan, and the loquacious Albanian Florian Marku had to get off the floor to beat Ryan Charlton, there was everything that was good about the fight game.

Please be upstanding for the participants and the matchmaker who compiled such an evenly matched card. There was so much to enjoy.

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February 21, 2021 0

Honeyghan destroys Bumphus. 34 years on, the memories remain

Much time has passed since last I was ringside for a boxing match. A break exacerbated by the pandemic of course. The joy of people watching, a pastime inherited sitting besides a Grandad waiting “near the Spinner” in Doncaster for a Grandma browsing in Marks’, is sweetly fed in a press seat. From those middle-age men assigned to chaperone ring card girls, to the fighter’s moll, tightly wrapped for later, the polo shirt security blinking into the darkness beyond the apron, to the men in silk pyjama jackets, bent noses all, a stray towel flung on their shoulder, boxing employs a diverse troupe of characters.

One of the most glorious attendees at any London event is the former Welterweight champion, Lloyd Honeyghan. The Ragamuffin Man is a man of sartorial individualism. From the fur coat, the spats, to the ‘Chicago’ trilby, to the cane with a leaping cat, his presence is felt the moment he enters a room. Any room. He was once afforded the front row seat directly in ahead of me at a fight card I’ve long since forgotten. Or to rephrase, I was sat behind him. That seems more respectful. Star struck, I failed to speak.

The aura to which I was prisoner that night, began 34 years ago.

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February 20, 2021 0

‘Bronco’ Lara throws Warrington from the Featherweight saddle

It is hard to know where to start a fight report on Josh Warrington’s contest with unheralded Mexican, Mauricio Lara. The 22-year-old, who catapults himself from anonymity and small purses to the world scene with the victory, remains the same boxer he was on Friday. He is still slow, with wide punches, ponderous feet and a propensity to mark up. But he has, whatever circumstances prove to have been in play, battered the best Featherweight in the world and knocked him out in spectacular fashion.

Congratulations to him for taking the fight and grabbing the chance. Almost everything else about the night felt wrong.

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February 14, 2021 1

Bad publicity is still publicity. Bryan beats Stiverne in heavyweight hinterland

Championship [noun]
A contest for the position of champion in a sport or game

Any publicity is good publicity the proverb insists. Trevor Bryan’s win on Friday night, KO11 v Bermane Stiverne, secured him the most inauspicious of ‘world’ title belts, in a world awash with inauspicious belts, and tested the age-old notion to the fullest. As well as the credibility of all involved.

The days before the fight, usually the key period of promotional push on a PPV card, were spent navigating a labyrinth of nonsense conjured by the Panama based World Boxing Association (WBA). A largely faceless enterprise seemingly inspired by the imagination of Lewis Carroll and harnessed with a move or two from the Lucky Luciano playbook.

Venerable promoter Don King was the unusual Alice in their dystopian wonderland.

Only in America.

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January 31, 2021 0

Conor, the boxing conman, departs. Garcia and Pacquiao to reassert boxing’s authority

As blood seeped from his nose, the veneer of alpha stripped from his name and with millions of dollars leaking from his future, Conor McGregor lay prone on the canvas. Pain flooding in beneath the Trojan horse of disorientation that smothered his senses. The Irishman appeared to pause. At first in shock but then with a sense of revelation, of the realisation that he was no longer what he was or what he thought himself to be.

Damage was smeared across his features. The malevolence of his persona hacked out by the fists of a capable opponent. Faces, familiar and new, bobbed into view. McGregor continued gazing toward the lights, perhaps beyond, like a husband outside a shop, staring to the heavens, contemplating whether he’d remembered everything on the list he’d left at home.

Dustin Poirier’s punches had pummelled McGregor’s to defeat. An upset victory that changes much in the world of MMA, and perhaps too, the boxing world McGregor was planning to return to.

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January 25, 2021 0

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