It's funny what a loss can "earn" you

In one of Britain's best fights of 2011 John Murray, the popular brawler from Manchester was stopped by former world title challenger Kevin Mitchell. Murray had ran up a record of 31 straight wins prior to that loss and had built a very solid local fan base. Whilst Murray was calling for the bigger fights he had ended up some what stuck in a rot defending either the British title (which he held from 2008-2010) or the European title (which he held for around a year prior to the Mitchell fight).

As a reward for "losing" to Mitchell he's now finally got the big fight he had been asking for, though it's one of the toughest assignments a Lightweight could possibly have, he'll have to travel to America to fight the WBA champion Brandon "Bam Bam" Rios. Rios is one of the most fearsome and heavy handed punchers in the division and has run up an impressive string of victories in recent fights to move his record to 28-0-1 (21). Rios has stopped all but 1 of his last 10 opponents early (the only one he didn't stop was Anthony Peterson who got himself disqualified after repeated low blows) and those wins including stopping the excellent Miguel Acosta and the teak tough Urbano Antillon.

Whilst it might fair to say that a loss has earned Murray a title fight, it may also be fair to suggest that a loss has earned Murray the most painful night of his life. Rios is, in many ways, very similar to Murray, both are in your face and both throw a lot of punches with neither man caring too much if they take 2 to land 1. The differences however are enormous. Rios really has a chin of granite as well as much more power on his shots, he's also craftier than the Englishman and much more able to enforce himself on a high calibre of opponent.

For Murray it may be his big chance, but he also had a big chance against Mitchell just months ago and was beaten at his own game, Rios will do what Mitchell did, just much quicker. Funny how a loss gets you a big chance though isn't it.

0's go in 4 world title fights, though did anyone pick the right results?....

In my most recent entry on this blog I spoke about a busy night at the end of the month which features a number of world title fights with out any of the fighters have a 0 in their loss column. Amazingly last weekend (16^th-18^th April) we saw 6 fighters with unbeaten records competing in world title bouts. Of those 6 fighters 4 of them had perfect winning records, a combined record of those 4 fighters stood at a very impressive 99-0 (75),with Juan Manuel Lopez at 30-0 (27), Andre Berto at 27-0 (21), Paul McCloskey at 22-0 (12) and Cesar Seda at 20-0 (15). Their opponents in the title fights had pretty impressive records overall themselves at a combined 109-14-6 (80) with the individual records of Omar Narvaez 33-0-2 (19), Victor Ortiz 28-2-2 (22), Amir Khan 24-1 (17) and Orlando Salido 34-11-2-1 (22).

Now what became rather surprising was that every one of the perfect winning records was ended within around 24 hours of each other. Cesar Seda's was the first to go as he was defeated by Narvaez in a fight for the WBO Super Flyweight title. Seda had put up a very competitive effort but the champions work rate, accuracy and handspeed was the telling factor. Paul McCloskey's 0 was the next to go as WBA Light Welterweight champion Amir Khan scored a hugely controversial technical decision win after a clash of heads opened a small cut on McCloskey's head and forced the fight to the score cards early. Neither of these results were that surprising, in all honesty. What was surprising were the other two results.

Juan Manuel Lopez had entered his bout as the WBO Featherweight champion, Boxrec.com had ranked him at #1 in the division and Salido had come in on a relatively one sided loss to Yuriorkis Gamboa. Lopez was a 1/16 favourite hours prior to the fight whilst you could back Salido at odds as high as 7/1. Those that backed the underdog would have been laughing themselves silly as their man force fed Lopez a steady diet of right hands and forcing the stoppage in the 8^th round. Andre Berto had entered his bout as the WBC Welterweight champion and was around 1/3 as the favourite and Ortiz was a 7/2 underdog. Ortiz started quickly dropping the champion twice in the opening round (though only 1 was scored) and dominated much of the fight (despite being dropped twice himself). This wasn't as surprising as the Salido result but was still a big upset of the man many had ranked as the 3^rd best Welterweight in the world.

Amusingly if you'd of had a double on the upsets at the best odds you'd have walked away with 36 times your stake. Salido was actually 14/1 to win by stoppage and Ortiz by decision was 7/1, had you picked both of those results you'd have won 120 times your stake. Not too bad for a return that right there.

Japanese Triple header

This coming Friday night sees a boxing triple header with 3 world title fights on the same card. Although the card is in Japan it's certainly a must watch for all boxing fans as some of the best smaller men in the sport put it on the line in 3 rather interesting bouts. The last triple header I can remember was a Don King card in St Louis which had the following fights:

Devon Alexander v Andriy Kotelnik (WBC + IBF Light Welterweight title fight)

Tavoris Cloud v Glen Johnson (IBF Light Heavyweight title fight)

Cory Spinks v Cornelius Bundrage (IBF Light Middleweight title fight)

Of those 3 fights we only saw 1 champion officially lose (Spinks was stopped in the 5^th round) despite many feeling that Kotelnik had done enough to take away Alexander's titles.

In Japan we have:

Hozumi Hasegawa v Jhonny Gonzalez (WBC Featherweight title fight)

Toshiaki Nishioka v Mauricio Javier Munoz (WBC Super Bantamweight title fight)

Takahiro Ao v Humberto Mauro Gutierrez (WBC Super Featherweight title fight)

For those not familiar with the champions he's a little bit on each of them.

Hasegawa (29-3, 12KO's) is 30 years old and after losing 2 of his first 5 fights went unbeaten for almost 9 years. His most recent loss came at the hands of Fernando Montiel (LTKO4), the first and only time Hasegawa has been stopped. The loss to Montiel ended Hasegawa's reign as WBC Bantamweight champion that started back in April 2005 that started when Hasegawa defeated Veeraphol Sahaprom. He has fought just once since losing to Montiel last April and beat Juan Carlos Burgos for the vacant WBC Featherweight title.

A skilled fighter the Southpaw doesn't have the fight changing power of some others in the division (Juan Manuel Lopez, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Mickey Garcia) though is one of the truly skilled fighters who moves and punches brilliantly.

Nishioka (37-4-3, 23KO's) is 34 years old and like Hasegawa he is a southpaw. Nishioka turned professional in 1994 and suffered a KO loss in his second bout, after 8 fights he was 6-2 which would extend to 11-2-1, since then all the blots on his record have come to Veeraphol Sahaprom. Nishioka and Sahaprom met 4 times (in 2000, 2001, 20003 and 2004) with Sahaprom winning the 1^st and 4^th meeting with the middle two being draws. Since the 2004 loss though Nishioka has been on a solid run of victories since then with 14 straight wins 8 of those by stoppage. Included in those wins were decisions over Napapol Sor Rungvisa and Rendall Munroe and stoppages over Genaro Garcia, Jhonny Gonzalez, Ivan Hernandez and Balweg Bangoyan.

Nishioka isn't particularly fast with either his hands or his feet though he is very technically solid, he doesn't waste much when he throws. Though it's really his power that stands out, he's not a monster hitter by any stretch of the imagination though what he is is a very solid hitter, he hits hard, he hits clean and he hits well. He showed against Munroe that he can break down hard working fighters. He can sometimes start slowly and was dropped against Gonzalez, though when he gets going he's simply brilliant and to beat him you need to keep him out of his rhythm. If he lands with a clean accurate shot it can well mean goodnight.

Ao (29-2-1, 9KO's) is the baby amongst the trio at just 26 years old. The blots in Ao's record have all come to good fighters with a draw against Hiroyuki Enoki in 2008 and a loss to Oscar Larios the same year. He has also lost to Elios Rojas. Ao does hold several notable wins though including victory in a rematch with Larios, a stoppage over Whyber Garcia and most recently a decision over Vitali Tajbert in November of last year. Ao like the other 2 fighters is a southpaw and much less well known. Currently ranked by Boxrec.com as the 3^rd best Super Featherweight in the world he relies on his skills rather than power though faces the dangerous Humberto Mauro Gutierrez. Guitierrez has lost to Tajbert a year prior to Ao's win.

Although I'd favour all 3 of the Japanese fighters to win (though the fights should be relatively fun to watch) the matches really aren't walk overs.

I give you Mr Paul Smith, part time boxer, part time English teacher

Sometimes as a writer it's fun to communicate with people that you write about. I've often enjoyed the brilliance of Twitter for such activities, of course my Ringnews24 piece “Audley Harrison The Mighty Twitter Warrior” is one of the most fun and amusing pieces I've done. Though sometimes you realise your opinion on someone flips 180 after talking to them for a while. They go from being someone you were behind to someone you want to see fail. A recent series of conversations with British boxer Paul Smith has been one of those cases.

Smith, from Liverpool, has a record of 29-2 (15) and I'd actually been behind him from when I first heard about him. His appearance on “The Contender” was short lived though he had shown his heart and was exciting, it further concreted my feelings that he was one to keep an eye on. Brave, hard working and the type of fighter that is genuinely good to watch. Though his actions after a fight last year in which his brother took a controversial decision against Scottish fighter John Simpson raised some questions about him. He acted like a bit of a tit to be frank. Though I gave him a pass, his brother had just won the biggest fight of his career in front of a pro-Scottish crowd and it was a reason to be emotional. My support was right behind him when he faced James DeGale, I actually backed him on all the PL's I was a part of and really wanted him to shut DeGale up. He had talked the talk going into the fight, seemed confident and was far more experienced than DeGale. Then it became obvious that he didn't deserve to be in the ring with DeGale. Smith took a 29-1 record into that fight against the 8-0 DeGale, it was a shock however that DeGale just abused him in the ring. It wasn't that DeGale was just quicker and more skilled, but he was stronger, his shots left more of an effect. It was Smith that was made to look like the rank novice.

Since the loss to DeGale Smith has been out of the ring, that's 3 months with out a fight and with none lined up we're unsure when he will be making a return. Maybe DeGale did more than just beat him in the ring but broke his fighting spirit. Maybe it was just a beating but quite possibly more. Smith was toyed with in front of his own fans in Liverpool and it must have been embarrassing to be handled so easily by a novice pro.

When asked recently by Ringnews24.com over twitter as to whether he would want to do an interview he showed the nasty arrogant side, the side that had been shown in Glasgow when his his brother “robbed” John Simpson. He failed to actually say “no” and instead accused the sites admin of being a drunk before going on to give “English lessons” over twitter, correcting grammar, which actually went down to pointing out a space before a comma is wrong. We can see from the twitter conversation excerpts below just silly Paul's lessons got:

“you don't leave spaces before commas , like that. Also CAPITALS help. Yet another whopper with a laptop posing as a writer.”

-We can see the irony here, no capital to start the sentence whilst capitals appear as a point of emphasis in the middle of a sentence. Mr. Smith, this isn't correct, you should know this.

“If you think your grammar is correct, and you expect people to read your site/articles then you're madder than I first thought!”

-Again pointing out grammar errors over twitter seems pointless but lets see his 3^rd point regardless.

“drink & debate don't mix. Especially when you expect people to take your opinion seriously! We'll see come April 27th. And NEW!”

-Again the irony of capitals Mr. Smith. It should be a capital “D” for “drink”, the “And” is a conjunction so there is no need for the full stop or the capital and “NEW!” should be “new!”. See this is easy.

But hey lets carry on this lesson, I'm starting to feel intelligent correcting someone else grammar.

“advertising on what exactly? Vie got more followers than that site itself! It's hardly popular. Like I said, wannabe writers.”

Again Mr. Smith, come on, get your capitals right. Also what is “Vie”? You may indeed have more followers than a site though that would probably come down to you being more famous than a fledgling site. Is twitter a popularity contest?

“as for PR if that's kidding the bollocks off loyal fans and sugar coating things then yes, it's not my strong point.”

Again missing the capital. Though this was in reply to his reaction when asked about an interview in which he was going to be able to express his opinion and tell boxing fans what he's been up to since the loss to DeGale and what fans were to expect from his return. If he honestly feels that's sugar coating, then it's a shame that he's taken so many to the head that he's showing signs of brain damage or lack of comprehension skills.

Anyway with this done I'd like to wish John Simpson all the best in knocking Stephen Smith out on April 27 live on Sky Sports 1. It's time the record was set straight and this time with out the controversial decision that marred their first fight. Better yet, like when DeGale beat Paul, this will be in front of more Liverpudlians at the Olympia.

As is obvious the above is all opinion and I'm not an actual doctor. I have the opinion that if someone thinks an interview is "sugar coating" then their is something wrong with them. I am entitled to such an opinion, just like someone is entitled to the opinion that I am a "wanker", that the Ringnews24.com staff member was a "drunk".

EDIT:
A new post by Mr. Smith
"Gotta love when people print lies about you too and try and twist the truth. More to the point, you gotta love libel cases!"

He can try the libel case but I never actually lied, again it's a statement of "opinion", if he doesn't understand this then thats his problem, not mine. Though thank you paul for the free publicity. As are his claims of "drunk" and "wanker", obviously Mr. Smith loves irony.


Edit part 2:
Paul recently tweeted:
" My opinion is that God exists, Diana was murdered and Aliens exist - but that doesn't make them FACTS. Your Scott is a liar..."

Now again this is a "fair comment", this doesn't make him a liar, and neither does my opinion that if he doesn't understand being asked to do an interview isn't sugar coating things. Maybe I will change my opinion to him actually showing signs of that damage, rather than just insulting his intelligence. Anyone who believes that Diana was murdered is a bit weird anyway...;-)

Final edit:
I recently found an article with a quote from Smith in which he called James DeGale an idiot, seems rather apt that he's happy to throw around insults but if others do it he threatens legal action with no foot to stand on. Also my preview on Stephen Smith v Jon Simpson II is now on hubpages.

Old men tussle

Some fighters just don't know when to call it a day one such man is former world heavyweight title holder Oliver McCall. The Atomic Bull, now a month shy of turning 46, and 14 years since he lost the WBC title to Lennox Lewis in that infamous bout that saw him break mentally in front of the worlds eyes is appearing once again in the ring. On Friday night Oliver McCall will face the once beaten Cedric Boswell in a fight for the vacant NABA Heavyweight title at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood. Boswell (33-1) is himself 41 and was originally scheduled to face Bert Cooper, who like McCall is 45.

Whilst I personally have nothing against older fighters carrying on if they are either fighting completely meaningless fights, for example those that were had by Hassan Chitsaz against relative nobodies. The fighters that are “older” and still able to compete with the best are also fine, fighters like Bernard Hopkins, Vitali Klitschko and fighters of a similar ilk are completely fine, they take care of themselves and also don't take a great deal of damage in the ring. Though when 2 fighters are getting US TV exposure with a combined age of 86 and are neither going places nor particularly worth watching I can't really see the point of it all.

The “old” heavyweights appear to be out in force this year though with Evander Holyfield, Ray Austin, Antonio Tarver, James Toney, Hasim Rahman, Shannon Briggs, Lance Whittaker, Rob Calloway and several others all ranked by Boxrec.com in the top 100 American heavyweights. I've written in the past about the lack of American heavyweights who are young and breaking through, it doesn't help that the older guys won't go away. Until something major happens the future looks as bleak as the past has been for the big Americans, those that want to complain the division is dead only need to look at fights like this one.

I'm Jesh Lashy I shink I get hit too much shir

So Jeff “Left Hook” Lacy loses once again, never has a one punch wonder fallen apart quite like Jeff. A fighter who promised much, he said he'd beat “Calslappy”, then found out that Joe Calzaghe slapped bloody hard, he promised to unify the Super Middleweight division, yet only ever held the IBF's trinket and now he must be thinking what happened to his career.

Lacy was a stocky, muscular powerful fight, who had been mowing through journeymen and has-beens. The likes of Robin Reid, Scott Pemberton, Rubin Williams, Syd Vanderpool and Omar Sheika were beaten once after the other in fact all 5 of the afore mentioned fighters were beaten in a 13 month streak of destruction with only Sheika lasting the distance. Lacy though wasn't actually a capable boxer, more a limited powerhouse, he, at the time, had the intimidation factor, freezing opponents at times, and over powering them at other times. It's worth noting Sheika was only 2 points (1 round) down on 2 cards) Vanderpool equally close prior to being stopped in the 8^th.

Although it's often said that Calzaghe broke Lacy, there were cracks already well inside the Lacy machine, he was power hungry, feeling over-confident in his left hand and when Calzaghe thoroughly beat him questions arose. Lacy had had the myth exposed, he was nothing special, in fact he was made to look distinctly average by an amazing Calzaghe who put in one of the greatest performances seen by a British boxer in history.

Since losing to Calzaghe Lacy won just 4 of 7 fights, scoring no stoppages and most noteworthy, every decision was controversial and disputed. Vitali Tsypko was flat out robbed, Peter Manfredo Jr could honestly claim to have been stitched up whilst Epifanio Mendoza could conceivably of won and ditto Otis Griffin. Tsypko failed to score any notable victories in his 4 fights following, Manfredo, after getting stopped by Sakio Bika, has dropped down to Middleweight, Mendoza has become a journeyman and Griffin, who was knocked out in his next fight, is now on a run af beating journeymen.

Though it's not who Lacy did beat, but his losses, being completely out boxed for almost the entire fight by Jermain Taylor, being out landed and stopped by the shell of Roy Jones Jr and now, the most embarrassing loss of his career, he was out boxed and out pointed by journeyman Dhafir Smith. Within 5 years Lacy has gone from being the American fighter with the world at his fingertips, to being a fighter who could well have gone 0-8 in his last 8 fights. The power, confidence, swagger and intimidation has completely gone the guy who was 21-0 (17) and viewed as a KO machine has fallen to 25-4 (17).

Whether it was the confidence beaten out of him, or he wasn't that good to start off with, any number of other problems, the 33 year really needs to hang them up having failed to win the UBO title, there is nothing left in the sport for a fighter who has nothing to give. If Lacy wishes to be turned into a slurring wreck then he can feel free to remain in the ring, if he wants to keep his senses he needs to walk away now!

David Haye v Jean Marc Moremeck, could it be possible?

I jokingly suggested some time back that David “The pensioner beater” Haye, the current WBA Heavyweight champion may attempt to fight another “older” fighter if the fight with Ruslan Chagaev falls through due to the medical problems surrounding Chagaev. Seems like I'm not the only one with that dark sense of humour, but one of the people mentioned in that very article also seems to be thinking that Haye may like to fight older men.

With a record of 36-4, unbeaten at heavyweight and the current WBA International Heavyweight champion, it all makes sense on paper. Jean Marc Moremeck, aged 38, seems to want a rematch with the man who took his WBA and WBC Cruiserweight titles back in 2007. The most blatant quote suggesting Moremeck wants the fight was “Since Haye is afraid of no-one, he should give me my shot at revenge in Paris”. Sadly we are well aware that Haye is afraid of the Klitschko's, and it seems anyone under the age of 35, or anyone who on paper would actually give him a tough fight.

Moremeck, who turns 39 next summer added “Give me three or four months to train with the right kind of sparring partners and I’ll be ready.” Now if we give him those months, he'll be about to turn 39 (the same sort of age as Ruiz and Harrison were), though most worryingly, the Frenchman has looked terrible in recent performances, lucky to get wins over both Fres Oquendo and Timur Ibragimov. Do not let the poor performances fool you into thinking Haye would say no to the fight however, he has a reputation of fighting fighters who have been showing a lack of form:
Audley Harrison had been dominated by Michael Sprott before landing a hail Mary punch late on.
John Ruiz had gone 3-3-0-1 in a space of 5 years (don't remind me he was the mandatory, that's a whole new debate to be addressed to the WBA)
Nikolai Valuev had been beaten for all intents and purposes by Evander Holyfield, with the crowd knowing it was a robbery.
And of course Monte Barrett who had gone 3-3 before facing Haye with wins against the likes of Tye Fields, Damon Reid and Cliff Couser (a man who had beaten him).

For Marc he may have noticed these things. Lets just put the evidence together:
Haye likes to beat older men
Haye likes to beat men who haven't looked good in recent fights
Moremeck holds the WBA International heavyweight title
Timur Ibragimov was #7 with the WBA (meaning that Moremeck “should” be #9 when the rankings are updated)

Of the fighters that (using my poor following of the WBA rule book) would be left. Chagaev would/could be out on medical grounds, Valuev seems to have all but retired, Boystov appears to be in no rush and neither does Povetkin, Ustinov will be no better of an opponent, Rahman is even older (in a fighters sense, though he is 5 "months" younger in real terms) and Dimitrenko seems less and less likely after collapsing in his changing room recently.

Whether or not I'm being harsh on the self proclaimed saviour of the division is up for debate, but the Moremeck rematch actually appears, on paper, to have some merit.