Fantastic night at upton park last night

[ono]

I think these up and coming fighters need to leave the UK shores and go train in the US for a year or so. Yes natural talent will take you so far but I think the better sparring (and training techniques) are to be had abroad.

That's the closest you'll ever come to complimenting Khan.

[Master]

Great read, glad you had a good time.

[JazMerkin]

I've got to say Hammer I was a bit disappointed with the atmosphere, I thought it lacked the passion of West Ham games, as it largely had a kind of bumbling football fan attitude to it. It was nowhere near as good as the atmosphere in the MGM Grand before the Pac-Hatton fight for me.

Getting drinks was a nightmare, and I had every unknowledgeable football fan trying to tell me why Kev would beat the shit out of Amir Khan. Not to mention meeting Mitchell's cousin's boyfriend who on discovering that I box, tried to sell me all kinds of PEDs

Anyway, me and my mate had great seats, right at the front of the East Stand (we were directly in line with where Kev eventually got stopped). The only problem was the Mancs who'd come to support Matty Hall (friends of yours Skel?). Actually that's not fair, they were all sound blokes except for one completely pissed up knob called Jimmy. He was clearly spoiling for a fight with someone shouting 'fuck West Ham' at me and anyone else who supported the club, then trying to pull his cock out and wave it about, before his coup de grace, which was trying to set fire to some 18 year olds jacket. Somehow his friends kept him from harm, but his knobbishness was extremely distracting during the undercard.

Williams looked completely shot, but I was impressed with Chisora for the first time since the Sexton fight. Ricky Burns looked like he'd get massacred by Martinez, although I was impressed again by Liam Walsh, who battered Ibrar Riyaz who is much better than his record suggests. I was glad to see DeGale do well, he moved nicely and took apart a decent opponent. I didn't hear anything negative for him, he's gotta be Frank's next hope for the venue if he's going to do it again (although given that Upton Park is officially the ground with the worst transport links in the country I don't know if that will happen).

So finally the main event gets underway, and The Cockney Rejects are basically there to just help the fans along with the words, but they still managed to fuck things up. I thought the fact that all the fans thought Katsidis was the challenger and started booing not realising it was Mitchell coming out was hilarious and so typical of the salt of the earth East London community. I'd heard beforehand from one or two people who train at Peacock's that Mitchell hadn't been training right, but I wasn't sure because you always hear this before a fight, but when Katsidis was jawing at him whilst in the ring and he stayed looking down I got worried. First round, not much happened but Kats outhustled him to take it. Mitchell boxed well the second round, and although he won it, there were warning signs at the end. The third was just a disaster, from the first punch that staggered him you could see he was in serious trouble and I said he would get stopped as he did. Initially everyone thought it was a terrible stoppage, but on seeing the replay on the big screen, Dave Parris made the right call (only time I will ever type that).

I think the way it ended was definitely dissatisfying, particularly because unlike West Ham defeats, it wasn't like you couldn't stick around in the vain hope of something else happening. What I was impressed with was Katsidis, he's dramatically improved from the guy who beat Graham Earl, and even the guy from the Casamayor & Diaz fights. I thought the discipline and skill he showed in the Escobedo fight was because Escobedo is imo all hype, but he definitely showed it wasn't against Mitchell, and whilst the best 140lbers would eat him alive, he could feasibly be the man at Lightweight soon.

It wasn't a bad night (aside from the Mitchell result), but it definitely lacked the buzz I was hoping for, probably because most of those there were football fans masquerading as boxing fans. The fight of the night was undoubtedly that one bloke taking on 8 policeman though, and even catching one of them clean. Quality.

Glad to see my boxing knowledge was able to help you impress what were no doubt some big-titted slappers

I got to say there were a fair few slags around post-fight, who seemed desperate for a length.