Tag: Carl Frampton

Leigh Wood to face wild Mexican Mauricio Lara

Article first appeared on BigFightWeekend.com

Two days ago, late night idling, I tuned in to a Twitter Space devoted to boxing. A handful of speakers and even fewer listeners. Some proclaimed a professional association to the sport, others merely lay opportunists, sharing profanity laden ‘shock jock’ opinions. It was an interesting medley. My visit lasted about the time it takes to endure a 40-36 show opener.

Extraordinary among this mundanity was the disdain shown for almost every fighter discussed. Listeners to the space may be surprised to learn just how many “bums” currently hold world title belts. I know I was. Among them, the panel suggested, was Leigh Wood, the Featherweight from Nottingham who was last seen knocking out Michael Conlon to secure the WBA belt.

Continue reading “Leigh Wood to face wild Mexican Mauricio Lara” →
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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.

Continue reading “Warrington and the chaos beyond a loss” →
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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.

Continue reading “Lopez leaps into world class after winning IBF title in rugged encounter” →
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Sadness and truth as Herring ensures familiar end to Frampton’s career

Frampton realises the size of the task

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.

Continue reading “Sadness and truth as Herring ensures familiar end to Frampton’s career” →
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Warrington steps down in pursuit of step up.

It is folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do.

Richard Whately, Philospher, 1787-1863

Lurching from the absurd to the ridiculous, from the passing Neon brightness of Leon to the deadly dark of the Panorama expose, boxing will be glad to get back to the business of, well, boxing this weekend. Even if it is the peculiar reality of Josh Warrington fighting an opponent who has a whiff of the unwanted mandatory about him, despite the absence of a world title belt to demand one.

The year begin, and remains, in the grip of a pandemic, but with every jab dispensed the sport, like the wider populous, is loosening its collar and daring to peak out at the Spring yet to come. British boxing’s self imposed hiatus, to relieve pressure on the health service, draws to a close and the popular Leeds born fighter will kick off the high profile schedule.

Of interest, despite the anonymity of the opponent, will be assessing whether Warrington can recapture the momentum lost due to inactivity.

Continue reading “Warrington steps down in pursuit of step up.” →
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Santa Cruz stagnates with Rivera defence

Article first appeared on FreeBets.net

It is one of the inevitabilities of boxing, reliant as it is on the health of two singular participants, that scheduled fights are sometimes derailed by the misfortune of injury.

From the heat of this forge, where promoters and matchmakers scramble to salvage the show, because the show must always go on, opportunities for unheralded fighters can be struck.

This weekend, opportunity knocks for Rafael Rivera as he accepts a late call to replace Miguel Flores, who withdrew with an ankle injury three weeks ago, as the challenger to Leo Santa Cruz at the Microsoft Theatre, Los Angeles. Continue reading “Santa Cruz stagnates with Rivera defence” →

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Warrington will remain urgent and ambitious as champion

Josh Warrington ready to go

Josh Warrington, the IBF Featherweight champion, has enjoyed proving people wrong this past twelve months. Firstly, and most potently, to the two world-class fighters he has faced in 2018; Lee Selby and Carl Frampton. Both were outworked and outthought to first win and then defend the title he now boasts. The suspicion Selby and Frampton felt they were superior pugilists and, therefore, consciously or otherwise, dismissive of the Yorkshireman was hard to supress.

Warrington explained their mistake with his fists in qualitative and quantitative terms. Neither Selby or Frampton could discourage or dissuade him.

In pursuing Frampton at all, despite acknowledging he represented the richest prize he could snare, Warrington showed an intent to fight the best available competition and not follow the more customary practice of a ‘soft’ first defence following the title win.

Warrington’s manager, Steve Wood assures fans, the aim is to continue chasing gilded rivals and not settle for simple defences. [4 min read]

Continue reading “Warrington will remain urgent and ambitious as champion” →

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Warrington overwhelms Frampton

As I imagined the seats slapping back to rest, the discarded plastic glasses being brushed along the aisles and the last heels clip-clopping from the arena into the Manchester night, the electricity of Josh Warrington’s performance still charging the air, there was time to recognise a first flush of empathy for his vanquished foe, Carl Frampton.

Frampton has been a fantastic fighter and though he may yet accomplish further before retiring, the weight of the ‘has been’ in this sentence is a burden he has been stubbornly resistant to but can no longer contest. In Yorkshireman Warrington, Frampton was forced to face the ripeness of his career by a fighter of unrelenting intensity and aggression. As had been the suspicion of the small band of Warrington believers, he represented the worst type of opponent for Frampton at this stage of his career.

Whatever the headlines of today and tomorrow, it was a performance of great skill and tactical acumen by Warrington, not just the fervour and volume that caught the eye; though all were key ingredients to the ‘pudding of proof’ he provided.

Continue reading “Warrington overwhelms Frampton” →

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Bet on Warrington to surprise Frampton

Article first appeared on gambling.com

The featherweight division has provided a platform for many of British boxing’s most noted prize fighters.

From Jim Driscoll a century ago, who lost much of his prime to the First World War, to Welshman Howard Winstone in the 1960s and the braggadocios Prince Naseem Hamed of the 1990s, the 126-pound weight class has been rich in world-class operators from Great Britain.

On Saturday night, at the raucous Manchester Arena, two more British featherweights will seek to carve their names alongside their prestigious predecessors. Continue reading “Bet on Warrington to surprise Frampton” →

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Fury, boxing’s Northern Soul, gathers himself for improbable coup

Northern Soul Dancer

Now my reputation has been one of the fastest men alive
So I’m gonna see how good you are when I count to five.

Archie Bell and The Drells
Gamble and Huff (c) 1969

I don’t ride on roller coasters. Never have. As a kid they terrified me, as most things of the unknown, the uncontrollable usually did. Now decades later, and as fully formed as I’m likely to become, crown exposed and eyes narrowing, the echo of that timid narrator remains as does the preference for control and for certainty. The actions of others, whether my daughter prowling the football fields of Suffolk or unwitting fighters from Feather to Heavyweight, afford me opportunity to marvel at those with the qualities I craved and in this vicarious voyeurism, experience the gnaw of uncertainty and danger without the risk.

There is something of this in my affection for Tyson Fury, the lug from Manchester, with the big heart, bigger appetite and even bigger words. Continue reading “Fury, boxing’s Northern Soul, gathers himself for improbable coup” →

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Life on the right hand side of the bill; Ian Bailey and the toss of a coin

First published at BritishBoxers.co.uk in November 2016.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are shared by thousands or even millions. Others are more personal; grandfathers with ‘snap’ tins filled with medals and ribbons or a father marching for his community beneath a colliery banner. Usually, their place is earned in endeavour we believe to be beyond us or undertaken in our stead.

Occasionally, a figure enters my consciousness from an apparently innocuous encounter or anecdote or due to the most obscure or seemingly trivial of reasons.

One such occurrence happened six years ago as I witnessed a humble coin toss occur in a boxing dressing room with a potentially career changing prize at stake. The toss was necessary to select one of the two unused reserves to replace an injured finalist in the Featherweight edition of the then popular Prizefighter show and a chance to win £32,000. Continue reading “Life on the right hand side of the bill; Ian Bailey and the toss of a coin” →

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That was the boxing weekend that was (08th Oct. 2017)

Photo credit: Phil Peterson

As I’ve written recently, these are heady times in British Boxing. The breadth and depth of exposure fighters and events are being afforded is unprecedented. This weekend, a host of shows were available to viewers across various channels and platforms and it was hard to know where to bring your shekels and attention to rest. Within the quietness of Sunday I like to reflect on the high points from the weekend; this one came packed with super-sized lightweights, knees to the nether regions and the arrival of a new fighter to my roundtable of favourites. Continue reading “That was the boxing weekend that was (08th Oct. 2017)” →

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