Scotland’s Josh Taylor is a special talent

10/22/2016 John Wight

Every Scottish fighter operating in the lighter divisions who shows the first hint of potential is immediately burdened by comparison to Ken Buchanan, the greatest fighter this small nation of five million has ever produced. It is a burden they are forced to carry as they try to live up to the great lightweight world champion’s tremendous legacy, one of the greatest ever cultivated by a lightweight anywhere in any era. In every case up to now it has proved a curse, damning the unfortunate recipient of such high expectations with unrealistic promise.

continue

Liam Smith learns that courage and heart is not enough at the elite level

09/19/201609/19/2016 John Wight

Twice in two weeks British world champions – Kell Brook and Liam Smith – have stepped up to the elite level and come up short. Of the two a case can be made that Kell Brook does belong at the elite level, just not at middleweight; and certainly not at middleweight against the machine that is Gennady Golovkin. The Sheffield welterweight world champion’s next outing at light middle will prove beyond doubt if he’s as good as many of us believe he is when up against the likes of Canelo Alvarez – assuming, of course, that the Mexican stays at 154lbs to defend the WBO belt he just won from Britain’s Liam Smith, against whom he looked superb, securing a 9th round stoppage on the back of a vicious left uppercut to the body.

continue

Golovkin vs Brook: Size Matters!

09/12/201609/11/2016 John Wight

If ever a national anthem was suited to a fighter it is the Kazakh anthem that booms out before a Gennady Golovkin fight. It conjurs up the image of a column of tanks coming over the hill, guns blazing as they sweep all before them. The fighter known as GGG has a style redolent of said column of tanks on the offensive – merciless, relentless, and unstoppable.

Kell Brook did everything he could to withstand the middlewight world champion’s assault, but apart from a tremendous second round he spent the fight backpedaling like a man trying but failing to ward off a swarm of angry bees. GGG is every bit as fearsome and machine-like as his astonishing KO percentage suggests, a fighter who combines ferocious intensity with the ability to generate truly frightening torque behind his shots.

continue

Exciting Scottish prospect Josh Taylor ready to explode in his hometown debut

10/16/201510/14/2015 John Wight

The stories of talented boxers with star quality failing to achieve their potential, due to bad coaching and/or management, are legion. In every gym you go to, in every part of the world, you hear their names spoken with the kind of sadness and regret normally associated with mourners discussing a deceased friend at a funeral.

continue

Freddie Roach: “It’s for the soul of boxing.”

04/12/201504/11/2015 John Wight

“It’s for the soul of boxing.”

This was Freddie Roach’s summation of the stakes involved in Manny Pacquaio’s upcoming fight – the most lucrative in boxing history – against Floyd Mayweather Jr at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 2.

“I can’t lose this fight,” he went on as we sat downstairs from Wildcard in the private gym he opened last year for the sole purpose of working with the likes of Manny Pacquaio and Miguel Cotto in seclusion.

It had been six years since my last visit to the Wildcard Boxing Club, and ten years since I’d been a regular while living in the city. The changes that had taken place in that time were immediately obvious during my initial arrival at the gym two days prior.

continue

Froch v Groves II – Postscript

06/02/201406/02/2014 John Wight

Someone once described boxing as show business with blood. Joe Frazier’s take on it was perhaps more to the point. “Boxing is the only sport where you can get your brain shook, your money took, and your name in the undertaker book.”

How to place boxing as a sport in the second decade of the 21st century? Whenever we take a measure of ourselves and society today the word civilized automatically springs to mind – and yet, interrupting this smug belief in our own sophistication, up pops a sport like boxing to remind us of the uncomfortable truth that barbarism still has its place.

continue

Carl Froch v George Groves 2: The Rematch Is Here!

05/29/201405/29/2014 John Wight

The most anticipated fight in British boxing in decades is upon us. On Saturday at Wembley Stadium in London, Carl Froch and George Groves will climb into the ring in front of 80,000 spectators, with millions watching on television not only in Britain but around the world.

Not since the Eubank v Benn rematch at Old Trafford in 1993 has a domestic boxing rivalry generated this much excitement. Frank Bruno’s heavyweight clash with Lennox Lewis at Cardiff Arms Park, again in 1993, is also up there, but in terms of scale and magnitude, Carl Froch v George Groves exceeds both.

continue

Ricky Burns Is Preparing For War Against Terence Crawford On March 1

02/12/201402/12/2014 John Wight

When Ricky Burns climbs into the ring at the SECC in Glasgow on March 1 to defend his WBO lightweight title against unbeaten American challenger, Terence Crawford, he will be entitled to feel like a man returning to the scene of a crime he never committed but was convicted, tried, and found guilty of nonetheless.

The trials and tribulations that Burns endured in 2013 were more than staggering they were inhuman, even for a fighter as experienced as he is. Not once but twice he was forced to reach down into that place which resides in every human being but in normal people is buried so deep after years spent avoiding risk, danger, and hardship that they don’t even know it exists; and even if they did they would have no need of it anyway. It’s called the human spirit and from it is derived the will to endure unspeakable agony in the process of prevailing against seemingly insurmountable odds.

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, once wrote: “When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

continue

The Heroism Of George Groves

11/24/201311/23/2013 John Wight

groves7844 George Groves put in a performance against Carl Froch at the Manchester Phones4U Arena that will go down in boxing history as one of the most heroic, courageous, and audacious ever seen in the ring. All the way through the build up to the fight, Carl Froch had talked like a man who was going to roll over George Groves like a juggernaut, rattled by the younger man’s extraordinary confidence and belief.

Yet when they entered the ring it was Groves who appeared calm and focused, while the champion appeared agitated, nervous even. You sensed then that this was going to be special.

Groves told us he was going to come out and take the centre of the ring and he did exactly that, beating Froch to the jab again and again and countering with a right hand that soon began to find the mark. When sensationally he put the champion down with ten seconds left of the first round, it looked all but over.

continue

Froch vs. Groves: The Case for George Groves

11/19/2013 John Wight

In the lead up to what promises to be a classic contest, George Groves has been impressive. In fact it’s hard to think of a fighter imbued with as much self belief and confidence as he is right now. It is even more impressive when you consider he is about to step into the ring in the biggest and most important fight of his life in front of a packed Manchester Arena with millions more watching on pay per view against as formidable opponent as Carl Froch.

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.

continue