British Boxing News
IBF super middleweight champion, James DeGale (21-1, 14ko) has predicted that he will end veteran Canadian former champion, Lucian Bute (32-2, 25ko) inside 3 rounds when the two square off in Canada at the end of this month.
DeGale will again travel to North America on the 28th, following his title winning effort over Andre Dirrell in Boston back in May, and has told fighthype.com that he is feeling as good as ever and senses a knockout finish against the 35 year old Bute.
Anthony Crolla is hoping he can turn up the heat in his rematch challenge to WBA lightweight champion, Darleys Perez (32-1-1, 20ko) on Saturday, and see justice finally done after his hugely controversial draw with the Colombian back in July.
Rising British heavyweight prospect, Anthony Joshua, claims he remains calm and focused ahead of his Box Office showdown with Dillian Whyte on December 12, at London’s O2, though after he dispatches Whyte as he believes he inevitably will, a future showdown with Tyson Fury appeals.
While Joshua’s British and Commonwealth title fight with Whyte is a sought after domestic clash, the card’s PPV price tag has provoked the ire of many fans for it’s failure to include ANY bona fide, GENUINE world title fights, with promoter Eddie Hearn attempting to justify it by claiming the gold medal winning Olympian is already a Box Office fighter after just 14 one-sided blow-outs against limited opposition.
Blackpool’s Jack Arnfield (19-1, 4ko) is looking to seize his late call-up shot at British middleweight champion, Nick Blackwell tonight in Bristol (18-3-1, 8ko), and halt the rise of the man they call ‘Bam Bam,’ live on Ch5.
Just because UK fans knew it was likely coming, doesn’t make it any less a bitter pill to swallow, yet the [bad] news has finally dropped this afternoon [Fri] that Matchroom’s Dec. 12 show, headlined by the British heavyweight title clash between prospects Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14ko) and Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13ko) is to be a PPV event.
Promoters Matchroom and Sky Sports – their exclusive broadcast partner – are already taking an absolute hammering from angry fans on social media, dismayed at the prospect of shelling out for a PPV that includes NO genuine world title fights so close to Christmas, and only two weeks after Sky are set to charge fans for the Klitschko/Fury heavyweight world title fight on Nov.28.
Matchroom boxing boss, Eddie Hearn, likes to make a wish list of fights he’s keen on making for the coming year, and top of the tree for 2016 is the huge welterweight showdown between IBF champion, Kell Brook and domestic rival, Amir Khan; a fight he is eyeing for the Summer.
Brook – currently recovering from a rib injury sustained shortly before his scheduled October clash with Diego Chaves – is intending to box 2 or 3 more times at 147 before an eventual move to 154, so Hearn believes that time is of the essence – something he told Khan, who attended last week’s Matchroom show in Liverpool.
Chris Eubank Jr refused to face off with his Dec. 12 opponent, Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan at today’s London presser, claiming his middleweight rival has ‘lost the privilege’ of looking into his eyes.
Eubank, who holds the lightly regarded WBA (interim) 160 lb strap, will face O’Sullivan on the Matchroom Sport ‘Bad Intentions’ bill, in a fight that’s been sanctioned as a final eliminator for the right to face the winner of 2nd tier WBA champ, Danny Jacob’s December fight with Peter Quillin in New York.
British former super-middleweight world champion, Carl Froch sparked intrigue earlier this week with comments suggesting he was considering a comeback at 38, 18 months after his career swansong rematch against George Groves in May 2014.
Yet the ‘Cobra’, writing in his column for Sky Sports, has decided to now scotch the speculation, by saying he remains retired, and his desire to fight is gone….for the moment.
WBO 154 lb champion, Liam Smith (21-0-1, 11ko), has been granted something of an early Christmas present by promoter, Frank Warren, when he faces off against Manchester-based, WBO #8 Jimmy Kelly (16-0, 7ko) on Dec. 19.
The 23 year old Kelly, ranked #86 in the world by Boxrec’s computerized ranking system, has yet to box a 12 rounder in his fledgling professional career, and will enter the fight with Smith a monumental underdog, having last boxed beneath the champion in October, on the same bill Smith claimed the vacant title by stopping American, John Thompson.
WBC heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder, set for a reprieve from his showdown with mandatory challenger, Alexander Povetkin until April or May 2016, believes if he were to face Wladimir Klitschko tomorrow, he would emerge the victor.
Long dominant WBA/WBO/IBF champion, Klitschko, first defends his titles against Britain’s Tyson Fury on the 28th in Germany, yet if he emerges victorious from that fight as many expect, then it will inevitably mean he’ll go looking to capture the green belt once owned by older brother Vitali, in order to become undisputed heavyweight champion before he retires.