British Boxing News
19-year-old Conor Benn has some mighty boxing boots to try and follow, but the teenager who will box his pro debut on the Anthony Joshua-Charles Martin bill in London on April 9th, insists he is very much his own man. The son of British legend and two-weight king Nigel Benn, Conor, who will face Luke Keleher in a four-rounder at super-welterweight, told The Evening Standard that unlike Chris Eubank Junior, he does not want his father taking away any of the limelight.
As fight fans may have heard, former WBA heavyweight champ David Haye today officially announced how he will face unbeaten, but largely unknown, Arnold Gjergjaj on May 21st in what will be Haye’s second comeback fight of 2016. But while the fight announcement may have surprised some – Gjergjaj is a 29-0 fighter with a string of KO’s and he could prove to be a real threat to 35-year-old Haye despite his low profile in the UK and the lack of big names on his record – a very familiar face crashed today’s press conference and arguably stole the show.
Former two-weight world champion David Haye today announced that he will face undefeated Arnold ‘The Cobra’ Gjergjaj on Saturday May 21 at The O2 in London as he continues his journey back to the summit the heavyweight division.
Undefeated heavyweight champion Tyson Fury insists a back injury he first sustained in 2008, which has just flared up again, will do nothing to stop him from being ready to fight, and again defeat, Wladimir Klitschko whenever the rematch is finally set. Speaking with The Mirror, Fury revealed how he was “hit in the back by Richard Towers over in the Ingles’ gym in Sheffield” eight years ago and has suffered pain ever since.
Legendary British boxing trainer Brendan Ingle, at his famous Wincobank Gym in the city of Sheffield, trained a number of young fighters, taking plenty of them to major titles in the 1980s and ‘90s. Arguably the most famous of these Ingle fighters is former featherweight champ and KO king Naseem Hamed. The cocky, sometimes controversial puncher polarised fans in the 1990s and early 2000s, and was loved and disliked in seemingly equal measure.
Last night at Wembley, in a fight the followed – after a considerable delay – the Chris Eubank Junior-Nick Blackwell battle that sadly saw Blackwell taken to hospital where he remains under observation with a brain bleed – unbeaten heavyweight Hughie Fury won a dull but wide ten-round UD over a faded Dominick Guinn.
As most had expected beforehand, reigning and defending IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook made short work of mandatory challenger Kevin Bizier of Canada last night in his hometown of Sheffield. Destroying the previously unstopped challenger inside just two-rounds, Brook improved to 36-0(25). But immediately after his easy and ruthless night’s work, Brook called out the big guns of the talent-rich 147-pound weight class he believes he can conquer.
Two young and unbeaten British heavyweights who are still in the early stages of their respective careers got stoppage wins tonight. In Sheffield, on the under-card of the Kell Brook-Kevin Bizier show, David Allen improved to 9-0-1(6) with a 4th-round corner retirement win over experienced U.S journeyman Jason Gavern, 27-21-4(12).
24-year-old Allen was to have fought Richard Towers in a British title eliminator but Towers pulled out with illness and 38-year-old Gavern, no stranger to British shores having fought Anthony Joshua and participated in a “Prizefighter” show here, stepped in at late notice. The fight was unfortunately a dull, scrappy affair, despite Gavern’s attempts at livening things up with his familiar “whooo” chants during the action.
Former WBA heavyweight champ David Haye, who returned to the ring following a near four year absence in January, will host a press conference at London’s O2 next Wednesday to officially announce his second comeback opponent, so reports South London Press. Haye, also a former undisputed cruiserweight champion, destroyed Australia’s Mark de Mori inside a round in January, before a sold-out O2 arena, and with a TV audience of over three million tuning in to free-to-air channel DAVE.
British middleweight champion Nick ‘Bang Bang’ Blackwell has scoffed in the face of Chris Eubank Jr.’s claims he’s ‘bland’ and ‘boring’ and promised to take the fight to him when they meet on Saturday night (March 26) at The SSE Arena, Wembley.