British Boxing’s Beacon Burns Bright In 2013

2013 looms most promising for British boxing, following on the heels of 2012, which saw Britain clinch three Gold medals in the first home Olympics since 1948 and the greatest medal haul with Bantamweight Luke Campbell, Super Heavyweight Anthony Joshua and flyweight Nicola Adams all clinching gold medals.

The 29 year old Adams made history as the first female boxer to clinch gold at an Olympic Games, with medals also for Welshman Freddie Evans and Lowestoft’s Anthony Ogogo, which helped Great Britain top the medals table for Boxing, even ahead of the much vaunted Cuban amateur system.

This success has also seen a British team christened the Lionhearts to enter the World Series of Boxing to capitalise on the success of the London games and to continue the excellent work that Performance Director Robert McCracken has achieved since taking the post.

And this writer, like many a boxing fan, thought that McCracken, like his cycling counterpart David Brailsford, would also be awarded on the New Year Honours List, it was disappointing that the experienced and likable trainer was not given an award of some description, as he has achieved even more since Beijing and has received considerable increase in funding to build on the success that was produced in London.

Meanwhile in the professional ranks, British boxing is in very good health with three world champions. At Lightweight, in the shape of Scotland’s tall and stylish Ricky Burns, who served up a domestic barnburner with friend and former sparring partner Kevin Mitchell, defeating the Londoner in five rounds in front of a partisan crowd at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow.

Prior to this, Burns also defeated former WBA title holder Paulus Moses of Namibia on points. For Burns, the Lightweight division in 2013 is up for grabs with talk of WBC champion Adrien Broner being a potential dance partner for the Scottish stylist.

However, former British and European Champion Gavin Rees has beaten Burns to this opportunity with the flashy Cincinnati native, who could still be a future opponent for Burns in a exciting match up.

Other options in the future for both Burns and Rees could be the winner of Richard Abril vs. Sharif Bogere for the WBA’s trinket or WBA title holder Miguel Vazquez could also be a potential target in early 2013 in an mouth watering match up.

Burn’s stablemate Nathan Cleverly retained his WBO Light-Heavyweight title, scoring solid wins against little known American Tommy Karpency in a dominant performance before making his US debut against Native American Shawn Hawk, whom Cleverly stopped in eight rounds to impress the Stateside audience.

Cleverly’s first fight for 2013 will be a much delayed mandatory defence against German based Albanian Robin Krasniqi, who is unbeaten since 2006 and has won his last four fights by knockout.

Should Cleverly get past Krasniqi in front of his home fans, a line up of mouth watering match ups could be in the cards, against fellow title holders Beibut Shumlenov, the WBA titlist, Chad Dawson, the WBC champion who is scheduled to fight former WBC title holder Jean Pascal and the winner of Tavoris Cloud’s forthcoming bout against that ageless American master Bernard Hopkins.

These are the step up bouts that Cleverly should be aiming for if he wishes to be considered a top line fighter at Light-Heavyweight. There has even been talk of IBF Super-Middleweight king Carl Froch stepping up to fight Cleverly, although that has reportedly been shot down by Froch’s camp.

Which brings us on to the 35 year old Nottingham folk hero who joined an exclusive club of three time world champions from the British Isles including Bob Fitzsimmons, Duke McKenzie and more recently, Lennox Lewis.

This achievement came about in Froch’s first homecoming bout after three and a half years of fighting on the road in one of the toughest, if not the toughest, line up of opponents due to his commitment to the Super Six tournament.

Froch faced Danish three time world champions and friend Mikkel Kessler, German based Armenian Arthur Abraham, the former IBF Middleweight and current WBO Super-Middleweight champion, which was one of the most dominant and impressive performances of 2013.

“The Cobra” also defeated Jamaican Glencoffe Johnson in a tight points decision before eventually losing to the American Andre Ward in the Super Six final during a WBA and WBC unification match.

Many people, including his promoter Eddie Hearn, thought that Froch, at 34 years of age, should have an easy homecoming fight in front of his adoring public in Nottingham.

However, Froch, having a had run of seven world title fights in a row against some of the best fighters in the world in a talent rich division had other ideas, and as a result, persuaded Hearn to break the bank in getting over unbeaten Canadian-Romanian Lucian Bute, who held the IBF title, for his homecoming bout.

Many predicted that Froch, having had such a tough run of fights, could have been there for the taking against the hard hitting southpaw with a penchant for body shot knockouts, as demonstrated in the rematch against Librado Andrade and mutual victim Brian Magee.

The opposite proved to be true as Froch, roared on his by adoring public, jumped the Romanian southpaw in the first round, backing up Bute and applying intelligent pressure, making sure everything was tight and even and was making sure he did not let himself get dragged into an all out war that could see him getting rocked.

Froch stuck to the game of intelligent pressure, working off a strong left jab and placing the straight hand down the pipe. Eventually, by the fifth round, he succeeded in wearing down and rocking Bute before closing out the show in considerable style.

Froch would then fight American Yusuf Mack in his first defence, outclassing and outworking the brash American, who prior to the fight dismissed Froch as being a “fake Joe Calzaghe” causing Froch to remark that Mack would receive the “full wrath of the Cobra”.

True to his word, Froch dispatched Mack with a third round body shot, which was the first time that Froch had scored a body shot knock out since defeating Tony Dodson back in 2006.

Fast forward to 2013 and Froch is looking to write an exciting final chapter to his glittering career in May by re-matching his friend Mikkel Kessler, who snapped Froch’s unbeaten record in 2010 during the Super Six tournament in Denmark in a Fight of the Year candidate.

If Froch is successful against Kessler, he’ll then be looking to avenge his Super Six final loss to Andre Ward, while at some point rematching Bute in Montreal, which Carl is already contractually obliged to do.

Remaining within the Matchroom stable, Sheffield welterweight Kell Brook gets his first taste of the world stage by fighting American southpaw stylist Devon Alexander for the IBF’s Welterweight crown in Detroit on February 23.

Brook enjoyed a stellar 2012 that saw him defeat Matthew Hatton in a domestic War of the Roses match up, engage in a 12 round classic against America’s Carson Jones, in which Brook squeezed out a majority decision, before dispatching Argentina’s Hector David Saldivia in just three rounds to gain his mandatory shot against Alexander.

Brook must defeat a very tough and skilled opponent if he wishes to become Britain’s fourth current world champion as Alexander is very experienced, having held the WBC and IBF Light-Welter crowns, fighting the likes of Tim Bradley, Andry Koltenik and Marcos Maidana before beating knockout artist Randall Bailey on points back in 2012 to capture the IBF Welterweight bauble.

Two other Matchroom fighters who are looking to become world champions are popular Scouse Light-Heavyweight Tony Bellew and London Middleweight “Dazzling” Darren Barker.

The popular Bellew, who lost his unbeaten record against WBO Champion Nathan Cleverly back in 2011, started 2012 with a fifth round knockout against former European champion Danny McIntosh of Norwich at the same arena that saw Cleverly take Bellew’s unbeaten record.

Bellew rebounded by defeating three weight world title challenger Edison Miranda in nine rounds in what many regard as his beat performance to date as the Liverpool man displayed terrific ring intelligence along with a great jab and mobility against a known knockout artist.

At times Bellew, in some peoples eyes, looked like he was standing off against Miranda too much in the early stages of the fight but he eventually stepped up the pace in rounds seven and eight, dropping Miranda before forcing him to quit in the ninth.

Bellew would then go on to dominate tough and durable Argentine Roberto Bolonti on the Froch vs. Mack undercard, dropping Bolonti in the first and third rounds despite being cut himself to win the WBC’s “silver” title in a one sided points decision.

The lanky Scouser starts the new year fighting for the WBC Silver title, against Isaac Chillemba of Malawi, who once drew with South African Super-Middleweight star Thomas Oosthuizen.

Chillemba is also looking for his own crack at a world title and the Bellew vs. Chilemba winner could be inked with a potential match up with Chad Dawson.

For Darren Barker, 2012 was most certainly annus horribilis, plagued as he was by numerous injury problems, fighting only once in which he defeated former European champion Kerry Hope in four rounds at the Olympia in London.

Barker’s injury problems were so constant that he reportedly freely admits considering quitting the sport. but obviously, he did not do so and will look to get another crack at a world title after losing to Argentine great Sergio Martinez in 11 rounds in November 2011.

Staying on the subject of the 37 year old Martinez, Manchester area man Martin Murray is the latest British Middleweight contender to face off against the man they call ‘Maravilla’ as the two will square off in Argentina in April.

2012 started off quiet for Murray, who defeated France’s Karim Achour and Venezuela’s Jorge Navarro before being given his second crack at a World title following a controversial draw against the German Felix Sturm back in 2011.

It is indeed a big step up for Murray as he faces a tough trip down to Buenos Aires to fight Martinez at the Estadio Jose Amalfitani, the home of Argentine footballing giants Velez Sarsfield.

Martinez, who will be fighting in front of his fellow countrymen since 2002 after 11 years on the road that saw him fight iin Spain, the United Kingdom and more recently the United States, wherehe has made his permanent base.

Martinez has the edge in experience, quality of opposition faced and speed, while Murray is the younger and fresher fighter of the two but will likely struggle to deal with Martinez’s superior footwork and ring guile in this writer’s eyes.

Another British Middleweight who also fell foul of questionable German officiating is Birmingham’s likable former British and European Champion Matthew Macklin, who gallantly held his own against Martinez for 10 rounds in March, even scoring a knockdown in the seventh round before suffering two knockdowns in the 11th that prompted Macklin’s corner to pull him out of the contest.

Six months later Macklin came back and succeeded to prove that he remains a top-line Middleweight with a first round knockout of Joachim Alcine in Las Vegas.

On the rebuild after a mixed 2011 and 2012 is Light-Welterweight Amir Khan. July 2010 saw him lose his WBA strap to unbeaten American star Danny Garcia in four rounds after being on the receiving end of a questionable decision against Lamont Peterson in December 2011.

Following these back to back losses, 26 year old Khan decided to split from his five time Trainer of the Year and Hall of Famer Freddie Roach to join current Trainer of the Year Virgil Hunter, who has come to prominence with his work with current WBA and WBC Super-Middleweight king Andre Ward.

Khan went with Hunter to sharpen his defence and work on his ring craft, improvements of which were plain to see in his defeat of the extremely durable Carlos Molina.

It shall remain interesting to see how this new partnership will progress over time and how Khan will mature as a fighter as he starts to approach his peak years, remaining focused on his goal of unifying the division and potentially gaining his revenge over Garcia.

Elsewhere in Britain, fighters who see 2013 as their break out year are unbeaten heavyweight giants Tyson Fury and David Price, who when not engaging in Twitter wars, continue to beat all comers.

Fury dispatching former Commonwealth champion Martin Rogan in five rounds while fighting as a southpaw and then required another five to dispatch the game but limited Vinny Maddalone of the United States to clinch the WBO Inter-Continental strap before delivering an extremely mature and measured performance against the American Kevin Johnson in a WBC eliminator to potentially set himself up with a world title shot against the Klitchsko brothers.

However, Fury may have to wait to see whether or not he will get a crack at a Klitchsko, Vitali or Wladimir, because his eliminator against Johnson was only a semi-final with the other eliminator being Bermaine Stiverne against Chris Arreola.

Should Arreola defeat Stiverne, there remains the possibility that Vitali may choose to retire, having already defeated Arreola back in 2009 in Los Angeles.

For the older Price, things are much simpler. 2012 saw him dispatch three time British title challenger John McDermott in just 79 seconds for the English Heavyweight title to become mandatory for the British and Commonwealth titles which were are the time held by Fury.

However on seeing Price being installed as his mandatory challenger, Fury dumped his titles rather than face Price in what would be a potentially mouth watering fight that would generate considerable interest here in the United Kingdom.

Price moved on, dispatched former Commonwealth Champion Sam Sexton in just four rounds, rendering perennial underachiever Audley Harrison unconscious in the ring at the Echo Arena in just 82 seconds before needing just two rounds to dispatch former British, Commonwealth and European champion Matt Skelton with a body shot.

Price starts 2013 fighting two time world title challenger, America’s Tony Thompson, who brings both height, standing at 6ft 5 inches, and a southpaw stance, as did Audley Harrison.

However, in comparison to Harrison, the 41 year old Thompson usually remembers to load his guns, having scored 24 knockouts in his 36 victories with stoppage wins over Luan Krasniqi, Owen Beck and Chazz Witherspoon.

This step up to world level for Price should display whether or not he possess world level knockout power against an experienced opponent in Thompson and also stamina as he looks for his own world title shot against the Klitschkos.

Price has stated he would like face a Klitschko within five fight’s time as he steps to European level and continues his professional education, although the clamour would still remain for Price and Fury to face off against each other in a fight that would certainly capture the British public’s attention and generate considerable coverage within the UK press.

Another Beijing Olympian looking to make the step up to world level is Super-Middleweight James DeGale.

DeGale went 3-0 in 2012 defeating the Italian Cristian Sanavia in four rounds to defend his European Super-Middleweight title before scoring a dominant points decision over Hadillah Mohoumadi and then wrappig up his year against Fulgencio Zuniga.

DeGale has also since vacated his European title prior to winning the WBC Silver title, which he hopes will help him get a world title shot in a talent rich Super-Middleweight division.

Meanwhile, DeGale’s long standing rival George Groves has a an opportunity to gain the European title on the Burns vs. Vazquez bill at Wembley Arena against Mouhamed Ali Ndiaye of Italy as Groves too looks to push on following his win over former World Light Heavyweight champion Glencoffe Johnson to round off his 2012.

Also, honourable mentions go out to Billy Joe Saunders, who in 2012 clinched the Commonwealth and British Middleweight titles, Light-Middleweight Brian Rose of Blackpool, who clinched the Lonsdale belt outright, Frankie Gavin at Welterweight, who defeated veteran former world champion Junior Witter, amongst others.

2013 brings plenty of optimism for British fight fans.