Rocky Fielding – BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK

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At every crossroads that leads to the future, tradition has placed ten thousand men to guard the past.
Maurice Maeterlinck, Playwright, 1862-1949

British and Commonwealth Light-Heavyweight Champion Dan Azeez defends his two historical belts this weekend against veteran former Super-Middleweight WBA titlist Rocky Fielding at the Bournemouth International Centre on England’s South coast. An archetypal crossroads encounter, the fight narrative pitches the ageing Fielding against the emerging Azeez. Despite only two birthdays seperating the two men.

It is a contest with promise. Complimentary styles and well-matched protagonists. Both have much to gain, and defeat will shift perceptions too.

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When Rocky Fielding retires from boxing, which may be before you read this or at some much more distant juncture, he will, like a long sequence of British fighters before him, be able to say he fought one of the best fighters of his generation. Beyond the financial security he presumably secured in his defeat to the irresistible Saul Alvarez on Saturday night, there was something less tangible than the purse but no less essential to his story and his prospects of contentment in retirement.

Simply put, at least Fielding now knows. Like the four British fighters that fell to Canelo before him; Ryan Rhodes, Matthew Hatton, Liam Smith and Amir Khan, Fielding found a definitive benchmark against which he could measure his ability.

It is a question several of his illustrious predecessors failed to resolve before their careers were complete and one which still hangs over a number of Fielding’s contemporaries too.

Continue reading “Fielding and the liberation of defeat” →