Boxing News Boxing News
British fight fans can judge for themselves if Howard Eastman is justified in his belief that his exhilarating IBF middleweight final eliminator against Edison Miranda in Florida last weekend shouldn’t have been stopped. Sky Sports will show the contest “originally covered by ESPN” in full on Friday 31st March from 10pm.
Former undefeated British, Commonwealth and European champion Eastman was under fire, but on his feet, when the referee stepped in during the seventh round to end an affair between two obviously heavy handed world-class operators that had ebbed and flowed. There was the sense that the “Battersea Bomber” who protested immediately – was allowing the Colombian to punch himself out, but got caught heavily in the process.
In the sixth he had come close to securing the stoppage himself, rocking Miranda on two occasions, the latter as the round drew to a close. Eastman had never before been stopped, despite sharing a ring with the world’s best. He had previously lost controversial decisions to William Joppy for the WBA title in America and current IBF champion Arthur Abraham in Germany and last February extended then undisputed champion Bernard Hopkins, forcing him to box over the distance on the back foot.
Sky will also show Hozumi Hasegawa’s defence of his WBC bantamweight title against Veeraphol Sahaprom and knockout specialist Edwin Valero’s 19th professional fight from the card in Kobe, Japan on Saturday March 25th. Valero was 18-0 going in, with 18 first round knockouts.
