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Tonight, September 12, 2008, Barry Hearn’s Prizefighter tournament will take off again. In the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, England, eight heavyweight hopefuls will battle if out to win 25,000 pounds and become the new heavyweight prizefighter champion, succeeding the first champ, Martin Rogan, who won the initial tournament in April.
Prizefighter’s catch line is ‘eight heavyweights, seven fights, one winner. Modeled on Cricket’s 20:20 series, the first installment of Prizefighter was a hit on Sky Sports television and certainly is expected to be once more.
The winner will have to go through three fights of three rounds each, winning all. The favorite appears to be undefeated Chris Burton. Burton, from Darlington, stands ix feet five inches tall and is 11-0-0 with six knockouts to his name.
He will start against David Ingleby, 5-21-1. Despite being a heavy favorite, if the fights are anything like Prizefighter one, being the best boxer in the tournament may not mean as much as it seems to on paper.
A dark horse in the championships is the veteran Pele Reid. His record of 19-5-0 with 17 knockouts shows he will certainly test the favorite Burton if they are drawn to fight.
Reid has fought names such as Micheal Sprott and most recently, John McDermott. He starts off against Norfolk’s Sam Sexton. Sexton has one loss to his name and has previously beaten fellow Prizefighter contestant Luke Simpkin by knockout, so is no pushover.
Simpkin will start against another man with only one loss to his name, Dave Ferguson, who lost to last year’s winner Martin Rogan in the semi finals. Ferguson will believe he can go all the way this year after winning his last fight over four rounds.
The last opening bout of the evening will be two outsiders, Lee Swaby and Darren Morgan. Both have lost their last four outings and the run will end for one of them. It is worth noting that Morgan has previously lost to Sexton, and Swaby to the favourite, Chris Burton.
The tournament’s quality will again be questioned, however, but with Burton and Reid, both with a high knockout ratio, it promises to once again be a fascinating night for Sky viewers.
With explosive knockouts and pulsating action ,Prizefighter tournament two is not to be missed!
