I have had yet another busy month in October with hardly a moment to rest, but what a month it has been. The Home Nations performed amazingly well at the recent AIBA World Amateur Championships out in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Heydar Aliyev Sports Complex played host to proceedings with 685 boxers from 127 countries taking part in the Championships. Britain and Ireland came away with a very respectable three Silver medals and two Bronze medals. The medalists were as follows: Anthony Joshua (England), Silver medal at Super-Heavyweight; Tom Stalker (England), Bronze medal at Light-Welterweight; Luke Campbell (England) Silver medal at Bantamweight; John Joe Nevin (Ireland) Bronze medal at Bantamweight; and Andrew Selby (Wales) Silver medal at Flyweight.
Congratulations to all of the above on achieving something truly amazing. The AIBA World Amateur Championships is one of the toughest competitions in the Amateur boxing world. This year the Championships also served as a qualifier for next years’ Olympics that are being held in London. All of the medalists mentioned have qualified with the exception of Andrew Selby of Wales, who will have to ‘box-off’ with Khalid Yafai of England for the sole Great Britain Flyweight place at next year’s games. The other qualifiers from the Home Nations are Darren O’Neill (Middleweight) of Ireland, Fred Evans (Welterweight) of Wales, and finally Michael Conlan (Flyweight) of Ireland. Well done to all of the qualifiers, I am sure they will be joined by plenty more of our Home Nation boxers at the forthcoming European Olympic Qualifying event.
In other Boxing news, the recent WBC Light-Heavyweight title fight between Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson ended in farcical terms, with Hopkins injuring his shoulder after a wrestling like move by the younger Dawson in the second round of the fight. The WBC has since changed the initial result, a technical knockout win for Dawson, to a ‘no contest’ and therefore the ancient champion Hopkins retains his title in unusual circumstances. On these shores Scott Quigg of Bury successfully challenged Jason Booth for the latter’s British Super-Bantamweight title. Quigg dominated the older champion from the off, displaying some competent boxing skills and making Jason look everyone of his thirty-three years. Congratulations must go to Scott on a great performance, and I think it is time that Jason considered his options carefully. He is an old thirty-three year old having had a long career and his share of personal problems. Jason can look back and be proud of an outstanding career if he decides to hang up his gloves.
Nathan Cleverly also provided British boxing fans with a great display of measured boxing skills as he outpointed the game Tony Bellew in a tremendously exciting WBO Light-Heavyweight title bout. The fight headlined an action packed show from Liverpool’s Echo Arena, with James Degale also featuring in a European Super-Middleweight title challenge as main support. Degale had a tougher night than expected against crude champion Piotr Wilczewski. The Polish fighter was not expected to cause many difficulties for the former Olympic Gold medalist but James made things difficult for himself and was repeatedly tagged by the cumbersome Pole. Degale was crowned European Champion on a majority decision after a long and arduous night. James showed plenty of bottle to comeback from a couple of rocky periods in the fight but he must go back to the drawing board if he wants to make a major impression on the European scene in the new year.
This Saturday night Scotland’s Ricky Burns has the biggest fight of his career to date when he takes on Michael Katsidis for the WBO interim Lightweight title at Wembley Arena. It will be a real test of former WBO Super Featherweight Champion Burns’ resilience to overcome the explosive Australian in the early rounds. Ricky can make this task a lot easier than most think if he boxes at distance and uses his clear physical advantages of height and reach. He must not get into the trenches with Katsidis and Ricky’s amazingly high levels of fitness should see the Coatbridge man come through the biggest test of his career. I have witnessed first hand how hard Ricky trains and I believe that he can overcome all that Katsidis will bring to the table and in doing so will make a big statement to the rest of those in the upper echelons of the Lightweight division. Good luck Team Burns.
In non-boxing related events last month I had the pleasure of appearing on ‘The Chase’ television game show on ITV 1. Our celebrity team managed to raise fifty-six thousand pounds for charity, though I must admit our success was largely down to former Eastender’s star Shaun Williamson. My general knowledge is not in Shaun’s league, he is a very knowledgeable man indeed. All in all it was a great experience and I would like to thank Bradley Walsh and all of his team over at the show for having me on.
In other television work this past month I was lucky enough to be the Northern Ireland team captain on the CBeebies show ‘Ultimate Sports Day’, which was filmed in Scotland. There were many present and past sportsmen and woman at the show and the atmosphere was great. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the show, which took a week to film, and I was really impressed with the young and talented athletes who competed. If ‘Ultimate Sports Day’ is an example of the future of our sport in U.K and Ireland I have no doubt we will continue to be leaders in the sporting World for years to come.
Last month I also had my first ‘Ringside’ appearance of the new Boxing season on Sky Sports 1, sharing the stage with Spencer Oliver and Duke McKenzie, two of the great ‘little men’ of recent years. We had a very informative chat about Boxing nutrition and dieting and it was great to be back working with all the guys at the superb Sky Boxing team. ‘Prizefighter- The Featherweights’ was my second Sky appearance in quick succession and yet again it was a very pleasurable night. Choi Tseveenpurev came out on top and congratulations must go to the ‘Mongolian Warrior’, he’s a great guy and deserves his success. One of my former fighters Troy James made it through to the Semi-Finals having had a big tussle with Barrington Brown in the Quarters. Troy maybe wasted too much energy in his first fight and that would explain his exit at the hands of the awkward Rhys Roberts. Troy can come again and learn from his mistakes.
Finally, I spoke at the Professional Players Federation (Football) with Barry Hearn last month. I was there to talk about my role in the Barry McGuigan Boxing Academies (BMBA) and the effect of Sport in education and I enjoyed it immensely. Thanks to all at the Professional Players Federation for having me along to their brilliant event.
