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British welterweight champion David Barnes has his mindset on earning the coveted Lonsdale belt for keeps but will have to walk through what is sure to be a stern barrier in the form of former Commonwealth and WBF kingpin James Hare to do so. The Manchester based 147-pounder won’t have to wait long as he meets Hare tonight amid a great wave of public anticipation for what many believe will unfold as one of best fights of the year to take place on British soil. Will Hare’s greater experience and level of opposition carry him to victory or will Barnes’ youth, speed and southpaw style prove to be insurmountable hurdle for the Huddersfield man? We asked two people very close to the situation, David and his trainer, Manchester legend Brian Hughes, those very same questions and they can’t wait to tell you what they think!
For fight fans, the most anticipated boxing matches tend to be high-level affairs that divide the opinions of both media pundits and the common man in the street. On world level, recent pairings that have generated a great deal of such attention have been the Hopkins-De La Hoya and Trinidad-Mayorga contests. The ensuing fights themselves aren’t always as exciting as the build up, such as when Hopkins stopped Oscar after nine rounds of mostly cautious strategizing. Sometimes, however, it’s a firefight from start to finish as when “Tito’ and Mayorga traded bombs and machismo before the brave Nicaraguan wilted under the sheer volume of punishment in the eighth.
While no one is likely to confuse the relative levels of international importance between those match-ups and tonight’s domestic Barnes vs. Hare, make no mistake; this fight is big in Britain. Hardcore fans have been waiting for one of these somewhat rare moments in the UK when two high level opponents in the same weight class, who have been kept apart largely by being under the roofs of different promotional companies, finally get the chance to meet inside the squared circle.
True to form, this welterweight championship of Britain has generated deep dividing lines among enthusiasts of the gloved fist. Both Barnes and Hare have their support among all levels of fans, media and industry professionals. One of David Barnes’ true believers is his trainer, Brian Hughes. A former fighter and veteran of over forty years in the game, Hughes has seen more fights than anyone can accurately recall, and has a keen appreciation of the nuances of the sweet science. “This is the first 50-50 fight we’ve seen in Britain in a long, long time,” he volunteered. “But I’m convinced David will win and win convincingly. If every thing goes according to what we’ve worked out, and obviously there’s never any guarantees in boxing, I think David will be a sensational winner.”
As one would thoroughly expect, Hughes has ensured that Barnes will walk into Northbridge Leisure Center in Halifax, England as physically fit and psychologically prepared as is possible. The twenty-three year old British champion’s talent has earned him a spot in the trainer’s exclusive Collyhurst stable, home to Robin Reid, Gary Lockett, Michael Jennings and Thomas McDonagh among others. Such proximity to champions past, present and future engenders excellence in both preparation and attitude and Barnes is confident that he can carry that flag into the ring against Hare.
“I’ve been training really hard for this one going on fourteen to fifteen weeks now and I’m in better shape than when I won the title over Jimmy Vincent,” exclaimed David. “I need to stamp my authority down on James from the first bell. That’s what Rivera did to him last year and James went on his back foot. That’s the way to beat him; pressurize him and don’t let him off the hook. He doesn’t like to go with a change of pace, he’s always one paced, whereas I can up the tempo any time I want to. I’m that type of fighter; sometimes I get lazy and sometimes I put it on. But for this one I’m going to be applying educated pressure where I use my boxing brain and my skills. I’m good enough to stand there and make him miss shots. I’ve been doing that in sparring against people like Michael Jennings, Thomas McDonagh and Tony Doherty and that’s given me added confidence.”
As Barnes readily admits, James Hare is at least on paper the most difficult challenge that the Mancunian has faced to date. Before losing the biggest fight of his life and his WBF belt, to revived Mexican Cosme Rivera in December of last year, Hare was widely viewed as one of Britain’s most skilled boxers regardless of weight class. Since that time however, doubts have been cast towards the native of Huddersfield. Was the Mexican vastly underrated or was it like Hare’s handlers claimed, that they’d scheduled too many fights that year for James? Possibly a little of both as Hare did have four bouts within a six month period and Rivera did go on to destroy the highly thought of Hercules Kyvelos in four rounds to earn a world title opportunity.
Hughes has been studying Hare for a long time and feels that despite the opponent’s excellence, Barnes is a different kettle of fish altogether. “I’ve got the greatest respect for James Hare and I’ve been watching his fights since he was an amateur. He’s twenty-eight years old, a former champion and vastly experienced. It’s not going to be an easy test but the way David has been working, I think this fight will end up very well for him. All the lads in my gym are exceptionally good fighters but sometimes fate sprinkles a little bit of stardust on someone, and they sprinkled quite a bit on David Barnes. He’s not anywhere near his peak yet but he’s brilliant. He can box, he can punch, he can defend and he’s got a good head. He has a bit of what I call the Archie Moore style. David is a craftsman of the ring, he has a little something extra and I think it’ll be too much for James Hare.”
For Barnes, this fight carries so much importance on so many different levels that he can’t even conceive of losing it. At just twenty-three years of age, he certainly has time on his side but David Barnes is carrying into the ring a sense of historical purpose that he intends to fulfill. “I come from a very rough background and there were two different ways my life could have gone when I was younger,” he said. “It was either crime or boxing and I chose the hardest route but it was the best one obviously. If I win this fight then everything I’ve worked so hard for will all pay off. If I am successful, I’ll be the first welterweight from Manchester to win the Lonsdale belt outright. No one has ever done that before and I’d like to win it so that I could pass it on to my children when I’m older, as a symbol of achievement of what I’d done.”
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Curtis McCormick can be reached at thomaspointrd@aol.com
