Come in 37, your time is up – Whyte and Itauma at a familiar crossroads

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

Every match made in a boxing career is, essentially, a crossroads fight.

Terminology widely applied to bouts between fighters on an upward trajectory and an opponent trying to arrest decline or prove it to be a false narrative. Crossroads fights tend to have something at stake for both parties subject to the grasp the veteran has on the remnants of his ambition and the potential that pulses beneath the novice’s bravado. The advantages of youth versus the assurance of battle hardiness.

Moses Itauma, aged 20, versus Dillian Whyte, 37 years young, possesses all the elements required to earn the crossroads moniker and is the latest in a long line of prospects facing off against an established name.

Continue reading →

August 13, 2025 0

Billam-Smith loses title to Ramirez, remains undefeated as a Gentleman

As images emerged of Chris Billam-Smith in the days that followed his courageous display versus the talented Mexican Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez; left eye closed shut, the signature white tape clinging to the stitches on his brow and a bandaged hand with broken digits, it was hard to suppress growing admiration for his performance – despite the clear defeat he suffered. The pictures served as another reminder of the damage accrued in punishing, distance fights both in the conspicuity of the short term but also stored deeper for those days beyond the lights when retirement and middle age come to collect on the debt of punches taken.

Billam-Smith, like illustrious predecessors Cooper, Farr and a legion of others, won new fans and deepened the respect with which he is held via his toughness between the ropes as well as his conduct and demeanour in defeat. The Bournemouth favourite is a throwback to fighters who punched for pay long before most of Saturday’s paltry crowd in Saudi Arabia were born.

Continue reading →

November 19, 2024 0

The life and times of Henry Cooper

This article first appeared on BritishVintageBoxing.com

Two minutes into the opening round of Henry Cooper’s first fight with Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, the proud Englishman snorts hard and draws deeply, he is beyond Clay’s reach and permits himself a momentary pause. He knows he has started strongly. His eyes narrow, focussed on the American quarry before him, his nostrils flaring wide as he sucks air from the cool London night. His pale chest heaves.

Thin black leather shoes mold tight to his feet, glistening like wet paint. They slide and sweep, hop and reset to the doctrine of boxing, those strangest of dance steps. Cooper’s body is taut, narrow and sinewy, his gloves small and almost cuff less. Thinning hair is cropped short, pointing skyward, exaggerating the urgency of his actions. Battleship grey eyes glare from the shadows of a chiselled brow above. A wedge of protruding bone that juts forward, straining skin and tissue. It is a genetic anomaly that has betrayed him before and would again, in countless wars as yet unfought.

Continue reading →

March 28, 2021 0

‘The kid got heart’. Boxing’s most important but least tangible asset.

Article first appeared in Big Write Hook Magazine: Round 2

Heart. Every successful fighter must have it. Not the pumping organ of all human kind. The intangible metaphor; heart as the mythical adjective for the invisible and yet essential quality all fighters are assumed to possess.

Other terms are coined to define this unquantifiable; courage, guts, balls. Words you will read and hear in the tumult of a boxing match and in the aftermath, when the cups and broken dreams are swept away in search of the reasons and excuses for success and defeat.

Beneath the spotlight of a more dispassionate scrutiny, away from the heat of the moment, from the promoters hyperbole, ‘heart’ proves a more elusive quarry.

What is it? How can it be proven, can it be measured, developed, lost or restored?

Continue reading →

December 12, 2018 0

Going mainstream. Anthony Joshua, the rogue who charmed your Gran

There was a time when boxing in Britain on Saturday night meant Colin Dunne or Jawaid Khaliq and circuit pros like Rakhim Mingaleyev and Dariusz Snarski. The latter, solid, earnest little scrappers but unknown in their own hometowns, the former, World Champions as the term was cheaply distributed at the time. Heavyweight fights meant a butcher from Chesterfield or an ex-Rugby League player from Featherstone. ‘Event logistics’ amounted to twisting brass handles to lever basketball hoops from vertical to horizontal before Mike and his crew arrived to erect posts, canvas and ropes to the eyrie abyss. Nobody checked train schedules or whether U2 had left town.

Continue reading →

October 19, 2017 0

Audley, Audley, Audley

Love him, hate him, ignore him, beat him, write him off, mock him, chastise him, heck, tie an anvil to each ankle and drop him in the Thames. It wouldn’t matter, Big Audley would still be believing, still fighting, still chasing the dream. I’m beginning to think Harrison has special powers, the hide of a Rhino, the defiance of the Black Knight and will of Arnie’s Terminator. Despite being jeered to and from the ring, despite failing to overwhelm a man he outweighed by 3 stone and despite the proximity of his 37th birthday, Audley will not give up. Continue reading “Audley, Audley, Audley” →