British armchair boxing fans got a mixed bag this weekend but the undoubted highlight was the outstanding fight in Monte Carlo, between Nicaraguan-American Randy Caballero and Darlington’s own Stuart Hall, for one of the main alphabet belts at bantamweight. On paper beforehand, this always looked like the fight of the weekend, and so it proved. Both boxers are ranked high in the bantamweight division and although Caballero was quite a hot favourite to win, it was felt that the experience and sheer size of Hall might be enough to counteract his opponent’s advantages in youth and skill.
Unfortunately for Stuey, he came up short, with the second round knockdown he suffered putting him at a deficit on the cards which he could never claw back. Both fought tooth and nail through to the final bell and it was a truly superb contest. Not only that but two of the judges were absolutely spot on with their scores of 116-111 for Caballero. This fight showed everything that is good about boxing and, in fact, the whole card was excellent with another major world title fight and also a crossroads match between two hot prospects at light-heavyweight featuring on what proved to be easily the best card of the weekend. Credit to Rodney Berman and his Golden Gloves outfit for continually putting on these excellent shows.
Caballero is still undefeated, but he is no Abner Mares nor Leo Santa Cruz. However, at 24 there is still plenty of time for him to grow into his championship belt and with only Shinsuke Yamanaka of Japan at elite level in the division, he could well make several successful defences. Also on the card was the predictably messy victory for Martin Murray over the horrible Italian Domenico Spada. One of the most ridiculous sights of the weekend was Spada waving his arms about after the technical decision was announced against him. The look on Murray’s face was a picture, he had won every round and he knew it. After his win, it was announced that Murray was to be rewarded with a challenge against world champion Gennady Golovkin. Did I just say rewarded?? Of course, GGG is a killer, but Martin will be the biggest and perhaps toughest opponent he has faced yet when they clash in February.
A bonus surrounding this show was that the terrific main event was shown on terrestrial television via Channel 5 here in the UK. What a way to sell the sport. Channel 5 viewers also had the benefit of Barry McGuigan making what is now a rare appearance as a pundit. Barry’s knowledge and reading of the sport is of a very high quality and it was great to see him back in this role explaining to, perhaps, casual boxing viewers exactly what was going on. Channel 5 really hit pay dirt on Saturday night.
Luckily, terrestrial viewers were not served up the Liverpool Echo card promoted by Frank Warren, which beforehand appeared to have only two competitive match-ups to offer. As it happens, it ended up with only one competitive fight, that being the gruelling European flyweight title fight between Kevin Satchell and Valery Yanchy. Satch once again scraped through with a close verdict. In fact, I only had him one point up at the end. Hopefully, he will now give Scot Iain Butcher his rematch, with all three of his belts (British, Commonwealth and European) on the line. Kevin does not seem to be improving and sooner or later his luck will run out and one of these close fights will go against him. He spoke afterwards about moving up and fighting near-neighbour Paul Butler at super-flyweight. My feeling is that Butler would be too fast and dynamic for him.
The other fight of interest at Liverpool saw the further emergence of Jack Catterall as a serious threat in the light-welterweight division. His victory over Thomas Stalker was embarrassingly one-sided and Thomas should now seriously consider his future. With these two fights taking place early in the evening, we were left with a series of mismatches and, even worse, Paul Butler and Derry Mathews dominating overmatched opponents but being unable to put them away. As the BoxNation cameras wound down at 12.30 a.m., two young boxers were just getting ready to start their fight in the ring. What’s that all about? I felt sorry for the fans and relatives of these two, who had to wait until such an ungodly hour to support their charges and would not have arrived home until the early hours of the morning.
The two light-middleweight Liams, Williams and Smith, had simple stoppage victories on the card. Along with Brian Rose, they are two of the three best in the country at this weight. One would think that Williams would now challenge Smith for his British title, particularly as both have professed a willingness to take the fight. However, having watched the post-fight interview with Francis Warren, it became clear that the Warrens will be keeping these two apart for now. Williams is apparently set to challenge for the vacant Commonwealth title in December. What are the odds that his opponent will be a Ghanaian who no one has ever heard of? In all honesty though, it is perhaps best for Williams to avoid Smith at this stage of his career (he has still only had 12 fights). Smith will probably earn the final notch on his Lonsdale Belt against, maybe, Nav Mansoori, and then vacate to allow his Welsh stablemate to fight for the belt.
Over in Hull, Eddie Hearn’s plans to build an early summer-2015 match between the city’s two top lightweights went better than he could possibly have imagined. Luke Campbell, looking almost as muscled as his heavyweight team mate Anthony Joshua, blew away Argentine Daniel Brizuela as most of us expected him to. With his musculature seemingly increasing with every fight, Campbell now looks massive as a lightweight. Curtis Woodhouse’s ringside description of him as the best lightweight in Britain was probably correct. He is certainly right up there with Mitchell, Flanagan and Crolla already.
Despite local rival Tommy Coyle’s sensational knockout of veteran Michael Katsidis immediately following Campbell’s performance, it is still difficult to see him finding a way to beat Luke. However, he could not have done any more to impress. As the fighters readied themselves to come out at the first bell, I already had Katsidis two points up on my card, firstly for his fantastic Spartan warrior headgear and secondly for the brilliant “Lip up Fatty” by Bad Manners which he used as his entrance music. I have yet to work out the correlation between the helmet and Buster Bloodvessel but I am sure there must be one. Unfortunately for Michael he can no longer fight. This was a brutal defeat and I really hope he sees sense and retires from the ring once and for all.
Incidentally, both of the British lightweights, on the night, and Katsidis prior to the fight, were described as world-class by the Sky team. This term is bandied about far too easily. My criteria for a fighter to be thus described would be a top-10 world ranking or perhaps a fighter bubbling under just outside the top 10. None of these three lightweights are at that level. Campbell will be very soon though and it is starting to look like a battle between him and Joshua to see who will be the first British Olympian from 2012 to win a world title. Whereas Josh has to deal with Wladimir Klitschko, Campbell’s task looks far easier, with a group of uninspiring belt-holders at the moment. Only Terence Crawford stands out in this division and he is constantly talking of moving up to light-welter. My money therefore would be on Luke to beat Josh by a nose.
There was a moment of humour at the end of the Sky broadcast, when people’s choice Ed Robinson wistfully said he thought it was a shame that Campbell and Coyle should fight each other, as one of them would have to lose. This brought a laugh-out-loud response from Glenn McCrory, who rebuked Robinson to “behave” and reminded him that these were the fights the fans wanted to see.
For those who watched the Eurosport-broadcast show from Wales on Friday, there were 20 minutes of car crash television, and I’m not talking about Wales’ own version of bite-fight in the main event. No, the highlight of the evening was saved until the end, when the channel’s graphics insisted that we were about to watch hot young prospect Chris Jenkins taking on Pole Jacek Wylezol. It was immediately apparent though that the fighter climbing into the ring was not Chris Jenkins. How did I know this? Jenkins is a fair-haired caucasian light-welterweight and the fighter clambering through the ropes was a mixed-race middleweight, who was then announced as being Morgan Jones.
Unfortunately, commentators Tim Caple and Richie Woodhall obviously did not know Jenkins from Adam (or Morgan) and spent the whole fight describing Morgan Jones as “Chris Jenkins”, and Jones’s opponent, Chris Ware, as “the Pole”. My initial feelings of horror and embarrassment for the commentators soon turned into hilarity, as they failed to realise their grotesque error. For those of us not enamoured with the ubiquity of Richie Woodhall, this ended up as hilarious viewing. His reputation as a boxing expert took a massive hit here. Jenkins is one of the hottest young fighters in Britain and for Woodhall not to know him is quite unforgivable.
@RachelAylett1
