Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com.
Usually, it comes down to money. That is the ‘why’ of every fighter’s inability to retire at the zenith of their respective careers, with their personal peaks, however modest, conquered. Pugs and champions in their thirties and forties have always scrambled to resist the slope that waits beyond that crescendo since first they donned gloves.
Lennox Lewis spoke to Sky Sports this week about his hope that Oleksander Usyk would follow his own rare example and depart the sport at the very top.
“When a guy retires, it’s really down to him. He’s got to feel that push that he wants to retire.” Adding, “I would say to him to retire at your own time but retire on top. Like I did.”
Continue reading “Money. Lewis, Usyk and Jeremy Bates”
It will not prove as easy for newly crowned WBA Heavyweight champion David Haye to sell tickets to his mandated clash with American 
If promoting a fight is craft, then David Haye has used every tool in the box to generate interest in this Saturday’s fight with Nicolay Valuev. He is an effervescent self-promoter who has used eye-catching gimmicks, distasteful commentary about Valuev’s personal hygiene, appeared on every talk-show, press event and personal appearance in order to force this fight to transcend the confines of the boxing audience. And, glory be, its working. 
During the dim days of his post Buster Douglas career, I would maintain in the face of often fervent opposition that Mike Tyson was over-rated. That he succeeded in a weak era and through the many attempts to recycle the myth he tip toed around any of the risk-laden contenders of the 1990’s. Fighters like Ray Mercer, George Foreman, Shannon Briggs, David Tua were all punchers and held a shot** – Tyson wasn’t allowed near them. Evander Holyfield and latterly, Lennox Lewis further undermined the theory in emphatic triumphs over the ageing former champion. 
Since the disappointment of David Haye’s withdrawal from this year’s biggest heavyweight title fight and a potential record breaking event to boot it has been widely assumed Ruslan Chagaev would prove to be the natural replacement for the former Cruiserweight king. Similarly shorter than Wladimir, with a reliance on speed and movement the WBA champion is a far more obvious replacement, physically at least, than Nikolay Valuev, the near 7ft Russian who offers a polar opposite opponent than the one the younger Klitschko has spent many weeks preparing for. Bu this thesis overlooks one obvious factor, the 6ft Uzbekistan fighter is a left-hander. 
Those desperate to rekindle interest in the talent bereaved heavyweight division will hope the next three weekends herald the emergence of a new consensus contender for the division’s sibling kings. Since the departure of Lennox Lewis, and the three year retirement of the more rugged Klitschko, the division has waited for either a charismatic young puncher to appear or for the more fluid, but less stout Klitschko to stamp his authority on the troubled weight class. Fans gravitated toward Samuel Peter for a while, then had their heads turned by Alexander Povetkin swift ascension, fell in line behind David Haye’s march from Cruiserweight or, for the visually impaired who fail to see the molasses around his waist, fell in love with Cristobal Arreola in their quest to find an antidote to the soporific Ukrainians.
It is hard to evaluate Audley Harrison either as a fighter or an individual. I don’t know the man, I shook hands with him once and I worked for his website for a while but I don’t really know him. As a fighter he has failed to live up to his claims or supposed potential. Not even the most vehement Audley supporter – and there are precious few of those remaining – could claim otherwise. Now, at the grand old age of 37, with a humiliating loss to Martin Rogan in his last appearance in front of a booing crowd, Harrison has sunk to digging up camp stories from 2006 in a bid to tempt David Haye into a marking-time fight. Aside from saying “Big Issue” on a street corner or entering the Big Brother house I don’t believe the once favourite son of British Boxing can fall further. 
Vitali Klitschko, 37, was never a great fighter. He certainly wasn’t a great heavyweight champion. In fact, I’d go further I’d say he was a poor heavyweight champion and little more than a mediocre fighter. Like many in the curious, contrary world of boxing his repute grew more in gritty defeat to an ageing Lennox Lewis than in any of his victories, of which I would struggle to summon a single performance of historic significance.
BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK 