The scuffle was aggressive in nature, with not only name calling, but race as well as Roach’s Parkinson’s disease used as verbal weapons. Alex Ariza went farther than most would, not only kicking Freddie Roach but also mimicking his speech stutter.
Roach and Ariza never worked together in harmony, and their professional relationship also ended in a bad fashion. Words were said, and there was an abundance of finger-pointing coming from both sides.
Remember when, after his awesome KO win over Michael Spinks, an upset Mike Tyson told the media at the post-fight press conference that he may well have fought his last fight and was retiring due to his general disgust at the way the media types had treated him? Of course Tyson never meant it, even if he was angry at the time.
Well, another fellow named Tyson who has not been altogether happy lately, namely Tyson Fury, has also announced his “retirement” from boxing. The word retirement has the speech marks surrounding it because no-one really believes or takes seriously the announcement Fury has made via Twitter, yet who knows for absolutely sure?
Fury, no doubt disgusted at his big money fight with rival British heavyweight David Haye having been cancelled twice, wrote:
Dereck Chisora will now face the hard-hitting Ondrej Pala on Saturday 30th November at London’s Copper Box Arena.
The Finchley puncher headlines the multi-title show alongside Nathan Cleverly challenging for the Commonwealth Cruiserweight title, plus London stars Frank Buglioni and Bradley Skeete both in title action, live and exclusive on BoxNation (Sky Ch. 437/Virgin Ch. 546).
Chisora’s original opponent, Italian Matteo Modugno, was forced to withdraw from the fight over the weekend because he broke two ribs in sparring.
The 29-year-old European Champion believes that the heavy-handed Pala, who hails from Prague in the Czech Republic, will provide a much harder test than Modugno.
Groves believes he can win this fight and so do I. He believes he has the attributes to do so and so do I.
What are those attributes?
Terrific handspeed and accuracy: power (15 KOs in a 19 fight unbeaten record tells no lies): excellent lateral movement: the ability to throw shots from different angles: ring awareness: the discipline to box to a gameplan, as demonstrated against James De Gale when he defeated him over 12 rounds in 2011. Perhaps most important of all, he is superb when boxing off the back foot.
The up and coming orthodox welterweight pugilist, “Speedy” Rashidi Ellis is one of the best prospects to come out of New England in the last couple of years and his outstanding amateur success has him poised to accomplish significant achievements in the near future.
“I`ll be a world champion in a couple of years because I`m extremely confident in all my skills especially my speed and defense which is good enough to compete with anyone and with additional fights, I`m only going to get better,“ said Ellis.
Ellis is getting a great deal of publicity due to his stellar amateur success. He recorded an impressive 60-11 record against really good competition. This year, he won a Silver Medal at the Independent Cup in the Dominican Republic, losing a close bout to Cuba`s Roniel Iglesias, a gold medalist in the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Unbeaten Groves fights in his first World title contest in the North West, as Froch dons the gloves for his 11th fight in a row with a coveted strap on the table. ‘The Saint’ has been bullish in the build-up and has been awarded victory by many in the verbal battle between him and the champ – and the popular Londoner says the time is right for him to defeat Froch.
“This is the fight I have always wanted,” said Groves, speaking at his public work-out at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush. “I respect Carl Froch for achieving what he has in the sport, and I know he’s a tough fighter, but I also believe he is beatable and that I have the style to cause him nightmares.
It sounds good but Roach was also bragging about how Pacquiao had his best camps in his last two training camps, and we saw what happened with Pacquiao with him losing to Tim Bradley and Juan Manuel Marquez. It just gives you the impression that Roach is like a promoter with the way he builds up Pacquiao, and he ends up with egg on his face when Pacquiao fails to look like the fighter that he once was 4 years ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know about you, but I think the heavyweight division can be exciting once again. The idea is to begin matching up the young guns and letting them go at each other.
There is one thing I’ve noticed in quite a few recent fights involving heavyweights not named Klitschko. The heavyweights are letting their hands go and producing interesting and entertaining fights. It started a few years back on NBC, NBC Sports, and CBS where some up and coming prospects decided to do something that has been missing in years… a thing called PUNCHING! The results of those fights were that the networks signed up for more fights.