Larryboy

Another heavyweight hype falls to the Klitchkos'. They're just too big and good for anyone doing the rounds at the minute to even make them have to work a little. Same goes for David Haye, I see a fight between him and Vitali going no different except most likely not as long, as one thing you can say positive about Arreola is he has some chin. I doubt Haye lasts 6. He stands a good chance of beating Valuev who isn't anywhere near the puncher his size suggests and wasn't very active in his last fight, I doubt Haye will be able to KO him what with the height difference reducing the impact of his punches but he should ba able to out work him.

I thought there was lots of good action in the undercard fights, particularily from my boy Micheal Katsidis, but damn I was disapointed with the main event. It was obvious Mayweather still has his amazing skills, but unfortunantely he still has the same mentaility towards fighting. It as obvious right from the start Marquez was over matched, and after he dropped him in the 2nd it looked like Mayweather could have stepped it up and taken him out whenever he wanted. But instead he plays it cautious and taps his way to the usual dull, wide decision win. I can't fault his skills but I'll never like the way he fights.

Yeah. I take it the ref filled in his card the night before after spending all that bung money doing bars of coke off a strippers tits.

I didn't watch much (caught the end in a bar) of the England match as I was at a pro 40 game between Warwickshire and Derbyshire, I though I'd point out Jonathon Trott and Ian Bell had a real nice partnership going until Trott got an unlucky LBW, they looked very natural together. Bell got 105 in the end. Might be worth thinking about considering England again got a very lacklustre score.

Nail biting stuff this.

England took way too long to get going.

Vernon forrest dead.

Vernon Forrest was killed last night, looks like an attempted car jacking. Not been a good month for boxing at all, First Arguello then Gatti now Forrest. R.I.P

link to interview with Bernd Bonte

Klitschko's manager Bernd Bonte gives his side of why David Haye pulled out of a fight with Vitali. Apparently Haye's money would come from UK tv only (same as his planned fight with Wladimir) and after seeing Amir Khan get a low amount of ppv buys figured he'd end up with very little so pulled out of negotiations.

This may not be entirely true I don't know, but if it is I'm very disapointed in David Haye. I can understand a man wanting as big a purse as possible but fact is he isn't a draw and the Klitchkos' are, so the first fight will be on their terms. After that if he actually thinks he can win and isn't just out for the pay day, then he'd be in a much better negotiating positon. No risk no reward and all that.

It doesn't look like it. No one has Matt Skeltons fight for the european title either. No one showed the thriller between Tomasz Adamek and Steve Cunningham last week (thanks youtube) but we do get classics like Kendall Holt vs Demetrius Hopkins .

Eh? WTF? Smack talk maybe but he has delivered in his career thus far.

Haye hasn't ever exagerrated things? Like this top contender he was going to fight that turned out to be Monte Barrett? Like all those guys who'd supposedly signed to fight him but pulled out, who then came back to say they'd never been talked to? Who knows what the actual truth is there, This fight has since been confirmed by Vitalis people, but I wasn't going to put it past Haye to be trying to force them into a fight by announcing it then making out like Vitali was backing out, or just use a name to grab himself some publicity. Kind of like he did here when he runs up on Wladimir while he's doing a charity fundraiser. Pure class.

Even when he lost he learned a lesson so it turned out to be a win.

Did I say he didn't? He's got a big mouth, and says alot of things that are embelished, to put it mildly, that's my point.

An undecided venue in London. It is worth noting the only person claiming this bout is signed is Haye himself, and he's been known to talk as good a line of shit as anyone, so maybe it's just a figment of his imagination.

It's come out in the last couple of hours that David Haye has signed to meet VITALI Klitschko next year, apparently this is the word from haye's own lips of a boxing radio show. I wish him luck, against Vitali he'll really need it, he's slightly bigger than Wlad, probably harder hitting, has none of his brothers chin issues and seems to really enjoy his job of inflicting pain on people. Haye has the speed advantage but he's got his work cut out for him.

He has to fight Haye now, i think Haye's the only guy that will go after Klitchsko and try to make a fight of it.

At least that's what he says, until those jabs start hitting him on the nose.

Lots of people slag off Wlad, but what can he do? Rahman stopped moving after about 2-3 rounds when he realised he couldn't get past the jab, Klitschko did what he had to to win the fight, keep the guy at arms length and break his spirit then mix in powerful punches to put him away. He's not an exciting guy who'll stand and trade punches unless he has to, as when he does he gets knocked out. It's not his fault there's no one good enough to make him have to fight. Hopefully Haye will and we'll finally see an exciting heavyweight title match, but with his questionable punch resistance I wonder if he'll just give up after 50 jabs to the face like Rahman/Thompson did to avoid getting hurt, and fight to survive.

Him and Karen are getting divorced so I'd imagine it's been kiboshed.

The fight's all over youtube right now if you get over there quick as I imagine they'll be getting pulled as fast as people can upload them.

That was a grand fight. I hope Henesseys deal with ITV sees more fights of that calibre coming to terrestrial tv, and less of what Sports network brought i.e Amir Khan squashes. I feel for Pascal, he fought really hard and deserved better than 10 rounds to 2 and 9 to 3 which two of the judges gave him, though I thought Froch deserved the win.

What an absolute fiasco this has been. Guys get injured and all that from time to time, but this seems to happen on every single sports network card. Even the one I went to a couple of years back had a late cancellation and Micheal Jennings knocking the stuffing out of some over matched chump. I think i'd rather take 15 quid and throw it out the window.

Cook and Maccaranelli are off? Christ, I'm glad I didn't get tickets, I'd be so pissed off if I got Martin Rogan vs Audley Harrison and Amir Khan vs hard to pronounce Irish name guy for my money.

Are you Frank Warren, Larry?

No, just a guy who knows a bit about boxing. I specialise in translating what boxers/promoters are saying into what they actually mean.

Haye's management lined up young up-and-comer JD Chapman who is ranked 12th by the WBA and 7th by the WBO and Chapman backed out due to money concerns. Due to his crushing defeat to Ruslan Chagaev, Skelton is currently unranked. Barrett is 6th by the WBO.

The sanctioning bodies rankings are absolutely worthless. I'm assuming you checked the guy ranked above Barrett by the WBO is still alive? Because you never know with them.

Then there's the WBA and WBC, who don't have Wladimir Klitschko anywhere within their rankings. How can you not have the man who virtually everyone on earth acknowledges as the best heavyweight boxer in your rankings? Well, he's a rival organisations champ, so he apparently doesn't count. WBA/WBC/WBO/IBF rankings should not be used to suport any argument. The IBO do fairly good ones. But using the common sense rankings, Matt Skelton who lost his last match by UD to an undefeated world title holder with and olympic gold medalist should be ranked higher than a guy who got KO'd in 2 last summer by Cliff Couser, a journeyman 25-12-2 at the time. It's not like he's beaten anyone of consequence since, just some 7 foot basketball player. So while technically David Haye can fulfill this agreement he has with Setanta sports to only fight top 10 contenders or whatever it is, Barrett isn't a contender in 2008 and I'm sure he knows it.

Warren doesn't have that much pull and he's not that good a promoter. Why would Haye's management put him in with a dirty, old boxer whose most famous fight saw him attempt to headbutt his opponent inside the first 10 minutes.

I disagree, I don't like Frank Warren much but he knows how to promote a card, look at Haye vs Maccaranelli, they fight was everywhere and it sold out. If I wasn't a boxing fan I wouldn't have known this match was on.

Why would they put him in with Skelton? that's a fair point, Haye was looking to make a spectacular statement and get a match with either Vitali or Wladimir ASAP, and he'd have a hard time doing that against Skelton, not so much with Barrett. And it looks like it worked, So the long term plan was a good one. But look at the right now, Frank Warren offers good money and he'd be the promoter, taking the financial risk for the cards success. If the place was only half full, even with buy one get one free tickets, he'd be losing money. I wonder how Hayemaker promotions made out in the end. And if he knocked out Skelton, who's never been knocked out or even dropped to my knowledge, it'd send a real statement rather than a KO over Barrett, who has been KO'd by champs, contenders and journeymen in his career.

David Haye's up this saturday, they've moved the start time to 11.15, I'm hoping they're talking about his match here and not the cards start time.

Monte Barrett doesn't really have much chance, Haye has shown a bit of a weak chin before but Barrett really isn't that much of a puncher, they've been playing clips of him knocking out Tye Fields over and over to make him look good, but come on that's Tye Fields, long time boxing laughing stock. Barrett is also ageing, fell out of serious contention years ago, and isn't really big for todays heavyweights. haye should take this, KO within the first half of the fight.

What has been pretty funny to me is the build up to this fight. I enjoy watching David Haye in the ring, a puncher is always fun and he's pretty fast, but also has a certain vulnerability due to his chin and a weak defence which makes his fights edge of your seat stuff. But outside the ring he's so cocky it really gets on my nerves, and it has been good to see him knocked down a few pegs.

First, he wants to be a promoter and spits a reported

He was never a top level heavyweight, but he was a good British/commonwealth level guy for a long time, he probably could have been european champion too, if he'd got another fight against a different guy. I don't want to see him become a record filler, Julius Francis was a good fighter but he's carried on so long he's now got more losses than wins. If Williams has enough money or has anything else he can do for a living, he should get out now as he's not got it anymore.

Interestingly, I saw Williams interviewed a few weeks back and he said he wasn't actually 16 stone for the Gammer fight, he was really 18 stone plus but there was something wrong with the scales. I just found that funny and that's one of the things I like about Danny Williams, most fighters wouldn't admit to being fatter than people think they are.

Anyone catch Danny Williams getting his career finished on Saturday against the Polish fighter, you could tell from the start of the fight that it was the bad/lazy/unmotivated Danny Williams that turned up - he was getting caught all the time and not giving a lot back.

He was obviously too interested in thinking about his match at the end of the month in Egypt or wherever against a washed up Fran Botha - but I guess that wont be happening anymore!

I did. It's a damn shame Williams has fallen this far, he's been my favourite British fighter of this present generation, but the signs have been there that he was all used up and it couldn't be blamed on feeling lazy or not being up for some fights, because he's been like this for every fight for about 2 years now. He looked sharp against Scott Gammer, but looked like crap in 2 fights with Matt Skelton, got ko'd by Audley Harrison, and out worked by John McDermott for fucks sake. Lost in the controversy of refereeing and bell ringing and the like, was the fact he was getting the shit kicked out of him for about 7 rounds by a guy who had 10 fights, Konstantin Airich. It's time for him to go, I'd hate to see him turn into the new Julius Francis, a stalwart British champion brought in whenever a job boy is needed.

My 2 cents on Roy Jones/Joe Calzaghe. I'm a big Joe fan, I was one of the few still boosting him when Jeff Lacy was coming over to kill him a couple of years ago, but I don't think he beats Roy Jones at any point prior to Jones going to heavyweight. Jones was on a different level back then, even when he was bored he still made good fighters look ordinary. I have my doubts that Calzaghe could have beaten prime James Toney at all, he certainly couldn't have clowned him like Jones did.

It depends what you mean by dream matches. Gimmick matches between past it guys with name value? There are some, I bet there's alot of people who'd still pay to see Tito Trinidad rematch Oscar De La Hoya, for example. There's plenty of other great matches to be made, and always will be as new guys emerge to replace the old ones, problem is right now the guys who could be taking the top name spots, like Miguel Cotto and Kelly Pavlik, have been getting beaten. Cotto vs Margarito did about 500,000 ppv buys, which is damn impressive for 2 guys who aren't huge names and can't speak english to promote the fight.

WORLD LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP

Joe Calzaghe..........................Roy Jones Jr

 

10 Rounds - Welterweights

Zab Judah ................... Ernest Johnson

 

10 Rounds - Junior Welterweights

Francisco Figueroa..................... Emanuel Augustus

 

12 Rounds - Junior Welterweight

Dmitriy Salita ................. Derrick Campos

Looks like this is what's televised. Augustus is almost always exciting so I see some potential there.

will the Froch fight be on Setanta too? also Danny Williams is fighting tonight, anyone know if that'll be shown on TV anywheres?

Live on ITV1, unless plans have changed since I went to bed last night. A new promoter stuck a deal with ITV to new boxing shows for them, mostly on ITV4 but bigger ones will get on ITV1. Danny Williams will be on ITV 4 tonight, along with Junior Witter, starting at 7:20.

Regarding Setanta, as I remember it was connected within a few minutes on the phone call, and they send you a seperate invoice for it.

Bad Chad Dawson would be the only other name worth mentioing. He's on the up, not a huge marquee star but definitely the heir apparent in the light heavyweight, he's beaten Glenn Johnson and Antonio Tarver, it could be sold as Calzaghe seeing off one last young lion. I doubt it will happen as it doesn't have huge marquee value, but you're right, there isn't any other obvious big fight for him after this.