As Tyson Fury’s legs succumbed to the punches Oleksander Usyk was detonating about his temples in the 9th round of their undisputed heavyweight title clash, it brought to mind the work of renown Steeplejack, and Fury’s fellow Lancastrian, Fred Dibnah. Famous for his affable smile and fearless enterprise in climbing mill town chimneys of the type LS Lowry painted in the sky-line of post-war, industrial Manchester, Dibnah became an unlikely television personality in the 1970s and 80s. The British public became enchanted by his boyish glee as he clung on to the side of an obsolete monolith hundreds of feet above the ground with only stout boots and blue overalls to protect him.
In the gratuitous hospitality of a Saudi Arabian Saturday, a hellish Kingdom where all visitors must protest their gratitude with unstinting profusion, Fury was no more detached from the mundanity of Lowry’s flat capped factory workers, Dibnah and the grey skies and modesty of his own youth than anyone else in attendance to these grotesquely performative advertorials. With the possible exception of his vicarious father, John. A man made to ‘bleed his own blood’ having head butted a diminutive member of Average Joe’s Dodgeball team earlier in fight week.
In that 9th round, as Fury Junior’s matchstick legs betrayed the impossible heft above, it reminded this viewer of Dibnah, ambling backward in the long shadow of a Rochdale chimney stack condemned to fall by a redundancy of purpose. At that point, with his grip on his own consciousness at its most tenuous, he may have wished to be back home, or anywhere other than the tumult of losing a heavyweight title.
Continue reading “It was what is was. Usyk topples the Fury chimney. Does either man have any more to give?”
Sheffield’s Ryan Rhodes emerged from a British fight of the year contender to win the European Light-Middleweight crown from Salford’s blue collar hero, Jamie Moore tonight in seven pulsating rounds. 
In disturbing news, I’ve learned the WBC looks likely to withdraw sanction for the clash between 
In the immediate aftermath of Showtime’s exciting announcement of the Super Six tournament to be held at 168 pounds over the next two years, I asked readers to predict who they felt would emerge from the groundbreaking series as champion. As you might anticipate the outsiders, Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell only landed 2% of the votes cast but it was Danish hard-man Mikkel Kessler who fans felt most likely to prevail. 60% of the votes went to Kessler with Froch (21%), Abraham (9%) and Taylor (8%) trailing someway behind. 
Following an unfortunate series of injury induced withdrawals of late, notably Mayweather v Marquez, Kotelnik v Khan, Haye v Wladimir Klitschko, fans will be reluctant to presume David Haye’s mooted September 12th clash with 37 year old Vitali Klitschko is actually going to happen until the two men are staring across at each other with just a referee between them. However, in the interests of positivity – and the sport needs a pick me up following the sad loss of Gatti, Arguello and Caldwell in the past week – I’m willing to celebrate the news David Haye finally has his chance to back up his words with actions. 
Originally, the news Carl Froch was to feature in a six man round robin over two years on American network Showtime was met with little more than pithy sarcasm at BoxingWriter towers but now, two days later, it seems the proposed Froch, Taylor, Kessler, Abraham, Dirrell and Ward tournament is genuine and will begin with Froch v Dirrell in October – a twin venue double bill with Abraham v Taylor live from Germany. 
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. 
Regular visitors will be accustomed to the acerbic analysis of Andrew Mullinder, our resident correspondent in Moscow. I’m sure Andrew has all the usual creature comforts we enjoy in the West but I prefer to adapt the usual visual triggers employed by third rate cold war thrillers to conjure an image of Andrew huddled over an ageing type writer, all fingerless gloves, one bar fires and cheap vodka, manically venting on the issues of the day from his down trodden apartment block in some mafia run ghetto. Why? Well it just makes sense of his withering contributions, and the latest, a deconstruction of the most artificially created ring moniker in boxing must have come after a slurp or two of the strong stuff. 
I’m excited about the WBC Super-Middleweight contest between Nottingham’s Carl Froch and Arkansas’ Jermain Taylor, it pitches two fighters together who are in their respective primes. It doesn’t rely on nostalgia, nor does it feature a network favourite and a cherry picked opponent. It isn’t quite the choice Froch has framed it to be, pursuing Taylor is noble given the posturing of preceding champions in the selection of foes, but Taylor, lest we forget, is Froch’s mandatory as he won a vacant title and Taylor beat Lacy in a final eliminator. However, for all the glass half full gloss it still beats Taylor’s reliance on an age old cliche to promote the fight. 
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.
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