Boxing In Belfast…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Belfast.

A fighting town.

Matchroom.

A fighting promoter.

Queensberry Promotions.

Another fighting promoter.

Two weekends – two shows – intense rivalry.

In a fighting town.

The gloves are neither on nor off but Matchroom, headed by Eddie Hearn and Queensberry Promotions, headed by Frank Warren are in Belfast to promote their shows over two weekends that should see the city drunk dry and hopefully celebrating over both weekends.
It is perhaps ironic that, in the month where the United Kingdom has suffered the indignities of various terrorist attacks that the city renowned for the growth and development of highly organised and effective terrorist’s organisations should be looking to peacefully promote pugilism.

First up is Eddie Hearn and Matchroom with a very special IBF bantamweight clash between Lee Haskins, 34-3, 14 KO’s, and Ryan Burnett, 16-0, 9 KO’s. With an undercard filled with intrigue this is the match up that has lit up people’s interest.

Haskins is the 37 fight veteran and holder of the belt whilst Burnett is the young gun who wants to become a world champion in his 17th professional fight. Just to add to the statistics, Haskins has lost 3 times, Burnett is undefeated.

That Burnett shall be the home fighter does not worry the old guy as Haskins has fought the world over and takes that experience into the ring with him. Burnett, also very experienced though in an amateur sense, has the look of a guy going places. Former IBF world bantamweight and fellow Irish lad, Wayne McCullough went over to Japan and fought for the same belt, winning it, 25 days after his 25th birthday. Burnett will be 17 days over his 25th birthday when he gets in the ring and as the home boy, hoping to emulate McCullough and this may well be an omen. D’you think?

There is quite a packed undercard but one interesting “debut” on that supporting cast that caught my eye is former Cuban heavyweight Mike Perez, 21-2-1, 13 KO’s. Perez made a name for himself when he came over and settled in County Cork, Ireland, and fought for the International Prizefighter heavyweight crown. He won it but setbacks have meant he is now about to come down in weight and fight at cruiserweight – hence his “debut” on Saturday night. It is over 2 years since he fought and lost the fight for the WBC silver heavyweight title against Alexander Povetkin so a lot of people will want to see how those 2 years have been spent.

The following weekend, Frank Warren turns up in town with his version of the Belfast battle. Warren does not have a world title to flaunt but he does have 3 European belts on offer for the night. The vacant WBO European flyweight belt is up for grabs between Paddy Barnes, 2-0, and Silvio Olteanu, 16-11-1, 7 KO’s. It would, on the one hand, be a remarkable achievement if Barnes could take that belt on his 3rd professional outing. Of course, Barnes is a massively well respected boxer and has more medals than most from European Championships (A Gold and a Silver), Commonwealth (2 Golds) and Olympic Games (2 Bronzes) so maybe it aint such a surprise after all. He has the distinction of having fought for both Northern and Southern Ireland whilst gathering them. Of course looking at the record, on paper of his opponent does not give much hope of a competitive affair and perhaps Barnes shall record his first stoppage as a professional?

Then Warren has the WBO European lightweight fight between Craig Evans, 16-1-2, 3 KO’s who won the third fight of a trilogy against former Olympic British boxing captain, Thomas Stalker to win the WBO title and Stephen Ormond, 24-3, 13 KO’s who has held that belt before. It’s a title that may have a Welsh Dragon as the holder but Irishman, Ormond will have the crowd baying for his success.

That main event is the scrap between Jono Carroll, 13-0, 1 KO, and John Quigley 14-0, 3 KO’s, for the IBF East/West European crown. If we skip past the bizarre title of the belt, these are two undefeated fighters in a fight which is clearly a stepping stone towards world honours. Carroll, an Irishman by birth though now living in Australia faces Liverpudlian Englishman Quigley and this is a fight that most fans are salivating over.

The fights on Warren’s card are not littered by big punchers who have a knockout record and that may sway some of the boxing public in terms of buying tickets but these are two weekends of top boxing.

It’s a n interesting time in the UK for boxing and being on the television as both Warren and Hearn are sitting atop vary pretty empires. With Hearn the man with Sky and BT Sport and BoxNation in Warren’s red corner, the future of boxing is in safe (ish) hands surely.

There have been some challenges made in the past few weeks into the dominance of the top 2 – Firstly Cyclone Promotions, through the McGuigans, ironically based in Belfast is making waves and inroads. Barry McGuigan is no friend or supporter of Eddie Hearns, having described him as an arsehole in one press conference. This includes the recent announcement and hullabaloo over the Josh Taylor/ Ohara Davies fight which is on terrestrial television – Channel Five – over here. Taylor is a Scottish future world champion if Shane or Barry McGuigan are to be believed. If you believe Eddie Hearn, that future is mapped out for Ohara Davies.

The other promotional package that has pulled a fascinating trump card out the packet is the STV pay per view fight between the IBO champion Chris Eubank Jr and Arthur Abraham. I do not think that anyone saw that coming but now it is here it is a great fight and should make the whole Eubank thing zing.

In the battle of the big two, Hearn has an advantage in that he is well used to using his accessibility through social media. Hearn is young and comfortable with it whilst Warren seems to tolerate it.

Both Warren and Hearn make no bones about their disagreements but neither have bad blood in them to the extent that they cannot work together when they need to. It is a heady mix at the top of the tree but there are decent shoots of future challenges that are taking hold and growing.

For the sport to continue to be mainstream then it needs a diversity of promoters and more people working in the industry and that is one point upon which both Warren and Hearn agree. They may see some of this as competition but it is a healthy march forward that shall see the sport become more popular, their boxers fight in better fights and all shall be better served by an industry making money for all and not just the few – as has been the case in the past!

In the meantime, we are settling in to two weekends of action in Belfast to see who can be crowned the King of their rings and top of the TV promoters… I fancy a score draw…

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