British Boxing News
The talented young fighter was recently selected to join Floyd Mayweather’s camp to provide some southpaw sparring ahead of Floyd’s fight with Manny Pacquiao, and away from the bright lights of Vegas, with his feet back on British soil, Catterall is determined to keep the momentum going with a strong showing on Saturday.
Scotland’s Ricky Burns still thinks he has plenty more to give the fight game, and is moving back down to lightweight, where he is a former WBO champion, to achieve it.
Burns, 32, who also held the WBO strap at 130 lbs, was considered by many to be finished going in as the ‘away fighter’ against tough Texan Omar Figueroa back in May on Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions, yet gave a heroic account of himself in the wake of some questionable officiating. It was his second fight at 140 and 3rd loss in four fights.
Big punching American knock-out artist Jose Zepeda comes to Manchester on Saturday night in an attempt to win the vacant WBO lightweight strap when he fights hometown hero Terry Flanagan – who will be seeking to emulate fellow Mancunian Ricky Hatton’s historic world title win against Kostya Tzsyu in the City, almost exactly 10 years to the day.
It’s sure to be a bear-pit atmosphere for the undefeated American, who boasts 20 KO wins in 23 contests, yet ahead of the fight, he spoke to iFLtv to insist he is more than ready to step up to the plate, and believes it will be he, and not Flanagan, who walks out with the title.
On July 18th in Manchester, WBA (reg) super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg tops the bill when he defends his title against Spain’s Kiko Martinez, in what is sure to be a fight that will draw comparisons to that of IBF 122 lb champ Carl Frampton – and his own performances against the Spanish fighter.
The Northern Irishman took Martinez’s world title last September, having previously stopped him in the 9th to win the EBU belt the year before – and with negotiations between Quigg and Frampton for a UK super fight breaking down recently – all eyes will be on how the Bury man performs in anticipation of a possible future showdown with his Tiger’s Bay rival.
After the two camps came to a last minute agreement ahead of the scheduled purse bid, we now know that Tyson Fury is to get his opportunity to become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, when he fights dominant Ukrainian champion Wladimir Klitschko on October 24th in Germany.
Following the confirmation, both Tyson and his trainer and Uncle, Peter, took to twitter to express their excitement ahead of getting down to the rigours of a long, hard training camp, for which they will base themselves in Ireland.
As fight fans ave surely read by now, it has been announced by a number of sources how heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko will defend his belts against unbeaten Tyson Fury, the WBO heavyweight mandatory challenger, on October 24th in Germany. The two sides today came together and, at the last minute avoiding the need for purse bids, the fight was made.
Dusseldorf will host the big fight and both giants are confident of victory. Britain’s Fury, who has been calling for a shot at Klitschko for some time, took to his oft-used Twitter account just minutes ago:
“Viva Deutschland, I’m coming to rock your country in October be there or miss the best fight in heavyweight history, #letsgetthispartystarted,” Fury wrote.
If you happen to follow the twitter of ESPN writer Dan Rafael, then you may have seen the rather humorous exchange that took place yesterday regarding Carl Froch and his Golovkin assertions, that began when he posted a selfie on social media alongside the caption, ‘Too big & too strong for GGG’ – this in the same week that respected publication Boxing News ran a Q & A feature on Froch, carrying the headline quote; “I’ll likely retire.”
It’s pretty well known that when Golovkin’s manager Tom Loeffler seemingly went looking for Froch, he was met with a wall of silence after having opened initial talks with Carl’s promoter Eddie Hearn.
Dublin super-flyweight Jamie Conlan, nicknamed “The Mexican”, last night came up against a real and very tough one in Junior Granados (now 13-3-1) at The National Stadium in the City – the world’s only purpose built boxing arena – and survived numerous scares – including 2 hurtful knockdowns – to battle back from the brink and take the fight on scores of 96-92, 95-92 and 95-93.
Matchroom Boxing chief Eddie Hearn has this evening dropped something of a minor bombshell by announcing that he is considering making a purse bid to stage the upcoming clash between Wladimir Klitschko and Tyson Fury that, as yet, the two camps concerned have been unable to agree terms for.
Hearn, who has nothing to do with either fighter, and enjoys an exclusive broadcasting deal with Sky Sports, has told the channel that should the scheduled purse bid go ahead in Panama he may well be in attendance. The deadline for a deal to be reached to prevent the bid happening is Monday.
After David Haye twice signed to fight Tyson Fury and twice pulled out on him in 2013, citing injury, it left the giant Mancunian high and dry. Having put himself through two costly training camps ostensibly for nothing , Fury was left certain of one thing. NEVER would he deal with David Haye again.
Three years ago was the last time Haye stepped between the ropes at a rain soaked Upton Park, knocking out Dereck Chisora in 5 rounds – it followed their notorious brawl at the post-fight presser for Chisora’s challenge against Vitali Klitschko – and ever since that day, Haye has been popping up here and there on various quiz shows and reality TV programme’s, seemingly in an attempt to keep his name in the limelight.