Tag: Roy Jones Jnr.

BIVOL AND BETERBIEV CLASH FOR UNDISPUTED TITLE

Article first appeared on AndysBetClub.co.uk

On Saturday night in Saudi Arabia, the opening night of the new Riyadh season, two of boxing’s most gifted fighters are in pursuit of the first undisputed Light-Heavyweight title since 1999.  

Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol also put on the line long unbeaten records in their quest to secure a career defining victory in a bout that is both hotly anticipated and the culmination of a decade as rivals. 

Beterbiev is EVENS with BetFair, Bivol a narrow 4/5 Favourite on Outright markets. Odds reflective of how closely matched the two men are. 

For those inclined to bet on boxing, the show features a raft of British interest on the under card. Here are four picks to consider. 

Continue reading “BIVOL AND BETERBIEV CLASH FOR UNDISPUTED TITLE” →
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Knowing when to quit (featuring Iron Mike and Daniel Dubois)

I don’t need permission

Make my own decisions

Robert Barisford Brown, (1969- ), My Prerogative

There was an unerring symbiosis between Saturday night’s principle contests. The old and the new, the real and the forged, the premature and the belated. A pair of bookends to boxing’s top shelf of literature.

In London, unbeaten heavyweights Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois duked it out to an 8 second TikTok loop of crowd noise for a prize as old as the gloved sport they excel in. While across the pond, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jnr., two fighters who predate Jurassic Park, tried to dig up the remnants of their glorious past against an LP of greatest hits for a belt even the WBC couldn’t produce in time.

Continue reading “Knowing when to quit (featuring Iron Mike and Daniel Dubois)” →
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But it’s Mike F****** Tyson

Take it from me,

It’s hip to be square

Huey Lewis, Songwriter, 1967-

I’ll have to whisper. So come a little closer. Now, look, this thing Saturday. Yer know, the fight. No, not that one. The other one. Yeh. That one. Well, I know all the hipsters have had their say and I know it’s all a bit silly, but, well, how can I put this?

I’m a little bit excited.

I know it’s wrong. I know I’m meant to rise above it. Look down on it. Reject it. Yeh, yeh, 54, I know. I know. But it’s Tyson.

Mike ******* Tyson.

Don’t tell me you’re not watching it.

Continue reading “But it’s Mike F****** Tyson” →
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Mike Tyson and Roy Jones; an exhibition of shadows

Roy Jones Junior the boxing elder

Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it.

Sarah Gruen, Writer, Water for Elephants

On Saturday night, which is the 27th day of the 11th month of the 20th year of the 21st century, two of the most luminous talents of the preceding century, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jnr., will climb between the ropes for an 8 round exhibition. The boxing world, in all its enduring schizophrenia, will pray neither are the destroyer of men they once were, for fear of the damage they may still impart on each other, while simultaneously hoping that they are both exactly what they once were. The latter, for the affirmation such Peter Pan deliverance would offer those voyeurs who’s vintage they share.

What began as little more than the whimsical nostalgia of those older viewers, who digested the curated footage of Iron Mike training, to maintain fitness and ego, in the midst of their mindless morning scroll, has now taken on its own life force. Plucking Roy Jones Jnr. from a retirement he didn’t seem to accept he had to enter, despite a catalogue of hellacious knockout defeats noisily encouraging the step, has added steam to the push. Now boxing has an event, the inherent risk of which, to the two relics in the ring and the sport they graced in their youth, can not be truly assessed until the first bell rings.

Or maybe the last , or maybe for whom it tolls.

Continue reading “Mike Tyson and Roy Jones; an exhibition of shadows” →
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Archive: Bernard, do not go gently into that good night

Photo credit: Jeremy Phillips

Published December 31st 2016 at british boxers.co.uk

In the breathless still before his final defeat, when the surge of the crowd left his ears and the noise of his own pulse flooded in, Bernard Hopkins must have known, as all wise men at the end know, darkness was coming and the cruel affirmation of “Special-Common” had failed to fork lightening. The two-years inactive, close to 52 years old, gnarled veteran had refused to go gently into the night. Instead, he had to be punched from it, through it and knocked into, not tomorrow, but yesterday by boxing’s truest maxim; nobody gets out on their own terms. Not even you Bernard. Continue reading “Archive: Bernard, do not go gently into that good night” →

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Holding out for a hero, is a new dawn really here?

Kelly Pavlik

There was a time, not so long ago, when boxing fans were entitled to wonder if a next generation of top-level fighters were ever to materialise. The class of the 90’s hung on, clung on and drove back any upstarts hoping to push them down the stairs and claim the house as their own.

Television networks stuck with the veterans, providing platform to those who reflected back the ageing demographic still pursuant of their boxing fix. Boxing, in a tale almost as old as the sport itself, is struggling for survival. Nefarious sanctioning bodies slowly dissembling its inherent hierarchy from within while the interloper from below stairs, the UFC, grew its appeal with the younger audience.

Boxing stuck with what it knew. Hopkins. Mosley. Oscar. Roy.

Maybe, almost a decade too late, the new class is here. I hope a rejuvenated Kelly Pavlik is among them.

Continue reading “Holding out for a hero, is a new dawn really here?” →
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You know the game is up when you’re dressed as Captain Hook

Roy Jones v Jeff Lacy

I don’t wish to demean Roy Jones Jnr, one of the finest fighters of his, or any, generation, but the publicity shots circulated today showing the once pound for pound king of the sport dressed as Captain Hook, the infamous pirate from the Peter Pan stories made me laugh out loud.  Easy to muse whether the Light-Heavyweight great had a moment of self-awareness either before, during or after the shots were taken. Here is a man who whipped McCallum, Hill, Hopkins, Toney and more – who was arguably the purest athlete the sport has seen -reduced to wigs, props and gimmicks.

Surely, he caught a glance of his reflection and posed the question to himself; “what the f*** am I doing?”.

Continue reading “You know the game is up when you’re dressed as Captain Hook” →
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Adamek to ride shot Gunn

GunnBobby Gunn is a curious phenomenon. No other fighter, whether christened Floyd, Bernard or Oscar has engendered the type of readership and commentary that articles about the Celtic Warrior have. I suppose that might say as much about the sporadic readership of this gloomy corner of the blogosphere as any significance Gunn actually holds for boxing fans at large but it forces me to ensure his doubtless plucky lunge at Tomasz Adamek, the number one Cruiserweight in the world, doesn’t pass with out some message of good luck. Continue reading “Adamek to ride shot Gunn” →

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Tarver granted stay of execution; Dawson injured

ChadIt would be remiss of me to overlook the timeless performances of Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley in recent months before deploring the matchmakers and executives who compiled and approved the Chad Dawson v Antonio Tarver sequel. Perhaps Tarver’s sojourn to the Rocky Balboa film set has infected the romantics among the powerbrokers, who refuse to give up on Tarver despite Dawson’s complete domination of the ageing former champion last year. A Dawson hand injury postpones Tarver’s second portrayal of a man with a white chalk line around his youth. Continue reading “Tarver granted stay of execution; Dawson injured” →

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Weight of expectation rests with Pavlik and Dawson

For those of us left jaded by the endless recycling of pensionable punchers Bernard Hopkins, Roy Jones Jnr., Antonio Tarver and Glen Johnson, the new season throws up three fights which may finally expunge 75% of the ageing chorus line from the Light-Heavyweight rankings. It cannot come too soon. Continue reading “Weight of expectation rests with Pavlik and Dawson” →

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Guest Article: A score needs settling in the Olympic ring

Guest writer Andrew Mullinder gets hot under the collar about the peculiarities and weaknesses of scoring in Amateur boxing, suggesting the quest to eradicate the blatant favouritism displayed in Seoul 88 has actually diluted the sport to such an extent it has become little more than a be-gloved version of fencing. As always, Andrew thinks its time somebody did something about it.

Continue reading “Guest Article: A score needs settling in the Olympic ring” →

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“Verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on”

Voicing an opinion without concrete foundation on a legal case involving Frank Warren is rather like smothering your tongue in honey, sticking your head in a bees nest and trying to sing “Are you lonesome tonight”, bottom line is, you’re going to get stung. With that reality in mind, I’ll tip-toe through the news he has brought a case against departed superstar Joe Calzaghe for Breach of Contract.

Continue reading ““Verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on”” →

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Boxing: Broken men; Froch and Lacy

As children, we all pushed our noses to the shop windows, whether it be sweets, a BMX or a Scalectrix set. We’ve all steamed up the glass to try and get closer to our dream. Poor old Carl Froch must still feel like the child on the wrong side of the glass watching the rich kids tucking into mountains of Fruit Salads, Gobstoppers and Coconut mushrooms. Despite a long unbeaten record, status as the WBC number one contender and victories over peripheral players like Brian Magee, Robin Reid, Henry Porras and Matthew Barney he remains sweet less, friendless and excluded in the Super-Middleweight scene. The news Jeff Lacy laboured to another points victory last night will not have cheered the spirits of the confident puncher. Continue reading “Boxing: Broken men; Froch and Lacy” →

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A life in reverse – Chris Byrd

I doubt a weight class has ever been as utterly descriptive of a fighter’s physique than Light-Heavyweight will prove for the former two-time heavyweight belt holder Chris Byrd tonight. In a bid to reinvent himself in the division, Byrd has lost in excess of 40 pounds at the age of 37. Byrd really is a Light, Heavyweight. For a decade the gutsy southpaw used his speed of foot and glove to mix it with the best the heavyweight division had to offer, and in the period in which he competed, they came pretty bloody big.

Continue reading “A life in reverse – Chris Byrd” →

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Trinidad plays heavy-lightweight to Jones’ light-heavyweight

PensionersRoy Jones begins the week with a characteristically wry smile and a less familiar sore right hip following his impressive defeat of Felix Trinidad over the weekend. True, both fighters are mere shadows of their respective primes, but despite advancing years they engaged in hefty action throughout the contest. Continue reading “Trinidad plays heavy-lightweight to Jones’ light-heavyweight” →

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The three ages of boxing romance

FallenfighterRemember, remember. John Gotti was found guilty of murder, Canary Wharf was bombed, Dolly the clone sheep was born and Bill Clinton re-entered the White House. It was also the last time a fight between Dariusz Michalczewski and Graciano Rocchigiani meant something. The year? 1996. It didn’t stop them staging a 2000 rematch and it wont stop both retired parties facing off for a third time next year. Heaven help us. Continue reading “The three ages of boxing romance” →

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Archive: The Final Curtain – Tyson, Holyfield & Jones Jnr.

Jones JnrI penned this article toward the end of 2004 for thesweetscience.com, intended to be the first to provide obituary on the careers of three of the modern era’s finest fighters it now seems premature as only Iron Mike has listened to his body and given up trying to fool opponents and fans that he can still reclaim his unfulfilled youth and potential.

Continue reading “Archive: The Final Curtain – Tyson, Holyfield & Jones Jnr.” →

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