Christmas day was 'boxing' day

I hope everyone in the blogosphere and readers of this blog (both of you) had a happy Christmas. My family did me proud and I received a number of boxing-related gifts including a fantastic Rocky 'Italian stallion' Balboa boxing gown (pictured on the right) courtesy of my wife, a Boxing Legends 2010 calendar and a boxing glove signed by former heavyweight champion Frank Bruno. I now have an enviable collection of boxing autographs which includes British greats such as Joe Calzaghe, John Conteh, Howard Winstone, Alan Minter, Dave 'Boy' Green, Big Frank and legendary BBC commentator Harry Carpenter.
My brother-in-laws also gave me a copy of Joe Calzaghe's autobiography, 'No Ordinary Joe' which I'm reading at the moment. I met Joe at a charity ball some years ago (that's where I got the autograph) and he was politeness personified, although not as tall as I'd imagined him to be. The book is good too, by no means a classic, but very interesting on his Sardinian roots and the controversy surrounding his non-appearance at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 (when he surely would have been a medal contender, remember Robin Reid went away with a bronze). But I was surprised when I came across this passage on page 16: " I was even asked to compete on Strictly Come Dancing shortly afterwards, but that's not for me. I'm not into the celebrity scene and going to big movie premieres. I'm a boxer, a guy from the Welsh valleys."
Oops.
To be fair to him, he's writing about a period, after the Lacy fight, when he was still very much an active boxer. His recent Strictly adventure only came after he had retired, undefeated. It's too early for a review as such so I'll have to finish the book and get back to you.
Meanwhile, a brief look ahead to 2010. There are already some mouthwatering match-ups to look forward to: Mosely v Berto in January, Vasquez v Marquez in May and the return of the super-six fights at super middleweight including our own Carl Froch against Mikkel Kessler, but at the moment the fight everyone wants to see looks further away than ever. Ben Dirs has a nice piece here on the farce surrounding negotiations for Pacquiao and Mayweather's proposed fight-of-the-century.

Valero marches on

He definitely hasn't mastered boxing's defensive arts, in fact, he has no defence to speak of at all, he's failed a brain scan meaning he can't yet fight in the US (outside Texas) and he has a reputation for being somewhat unstable, but Venezuelan Edwin Valero is one of my favourite fighters at the moment and a name to look out for. The 28-year old defended his WBC lightweight title on Saturday against the durable Mexican Héctor Velázquez, who suffered heavy punishment before staying on his stool at the bell for the seventh. Valero, sporting a huge tattoo of the the Venezuelan flag and his hero Hugo Chavez across his chest, has a 100 per cent knock-out rate from his 26 fights and needed less than 18 rounds of boxing to finish off his first 18 opponents (although questions could be asked about the quality of fighters he faced early in his career).
But what's refreshing about Valero is that in many ways he fights the way most of us would when entering the ring for the first time: arms swinging wildly (and quite often missing), no obvious attempt to cover up and the courage that usually only follows a few drinks. He throws very few jabs, they're pretty much all potential haymakers. And that's the difference, when he does connect it's with astonishing, clubbing, brutal power that more often than not dispatches his opponents with time to spare. The flip side of this is he leaves himself wide open and gets hit by boxers far less skilled than he. The suspicion remains that against an experienced champion he will be found out, but the guy's got the heart of lion and a solid chin so we'd be guaranteed a war of a fight at the very least. Next up: another defence against Antonio DeMarco in February with the prospect of a place on the Mayweather-Pacquiao undercard, assuming it happens and Valero can get a license, after that.

Malignaggi gets his revenge against 'El Torito'

Pick of the weekend action was probably Paulie 'Magic Man' Malignaggi's unanimous points win over the Texan Juan 'Baby Bull' Diaz in Chicago. Back in August Malignaggi was on the receiving end of a dubious decision in favour of Diaz when the two fought in Juan's home town of Houston. This time there could be little doubt Malignaggi deserved the victory and all three judges scored the fight 116-111. Malignaggi dominated the early exchanges, cleverly using his speed to stay out of reach and landing the greater number of punches. But Malignaggi failed to press home his advantage, insisting instead on showboating and talking to the crowd, his corner and even the TV commentary team at one stage rather than finishing his opponent inside the distance (perhaps why he's only won five contests by knock-out in a 30 fight career). Diaz took a couple of rounds in the middle stages of the fight before he was wrongly ruled to have been knocked down in the tenth. I've never been Malignaggi's biggest fan, I didn't like the way he recently hinted that Manny Pacquiao might be on drugs because he'd been able to withstand Cotto's punches where Malignaggi had failed, and nothing I saw on Saturday changed my opinion of the Brooklyn man. He's been mentioned as a future opponent for Amir Khan as has Timothy Bradley who also fought his way to a points victory on Saturday against Lamont Peterson. But a Bradley v Malignaggi fight seems more likely before Khan can get his teeth into either one of them.
There was also, lest I forget, a world heavyweight title fight on Saturday night. Not that I watched it. I'm told Vitali Klitschko bored his way to a points win over the previously unbeaten American Kevin Johnson. It underlined once again just how badly the moribund heavyweight division needs David Haye and I'm glad to see both sides have reached a preliminary agreement for a fight next year. The fact that Klitschko could walk away from boxing for four years and pretty much pick up where he left off shows the dearth of talent in the sport's most high-profile division.

Mitchell: Future is bright for British boxing

Excellent posting here from The Guardian's Kevin Mitchell who takes an extremely optimistic - but not unrealistic - view of the state of British boxing. It's a great time to be a boxing fan in general with the Mayweather v Pacquiao superfight on the horizon and excellent innovations like the super-six series, but for British fight fans in particular we really could be on the verge of a new golden age.

Jones defeat a sad day for boxing

At his peak he was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, boxer of his generation, blessed with lightening-fast hand speed and the ability to entertain, so it was with sadness that I watched the 40-year-old Roy Jones Jr crumble to Aussie Danny Green last week. English ref Howard Foster stopped the fight after only 122 seconds and even Green admitted he 'felt bad' beating up on Jones, one of his boxing idols. Boxing retirements are rarely as tidy as say Joe Calzaghe's (another man to have defeated Jones in recent years) who retired undefeated earlier this year. More often than not boxing retirements are long, drawn-out, painful affairs as the Jones episode proves.
Incidentally, the Australian commentator bills the fight as "the biggest fight in Australian boxing history". Well, maybe it's the biggest involving an Australian boxer on home soil, but the biggest fight in Australian history has to be Jack Johnson claiming the world heavyweight championship on Boxing Day 1908 against Tommy Burns in Sydney, brilliantly described in Geoffrey Ward's book, Unforgivable Blackness.

Roach deserves credit for 'King Khan'

Amir Khan made light work of his first defence of the WBA light-welterweight title on Saturday, needing just 76 seconds to dispose of the previously unbeaten New York-based Ukrainian Dimitriy Salita. You can watch the whole fight (walk-in and announcements included) here. Salita hit the canvas after just 10 seconds and never looked like recovering.
Meanwhile, Dagenham's Kevin Mitchell scored an impressive points victory over the only man to have beaten Khan, Breidis Prescott, and improved his record to 30-0. There will inevitably be talk (there already is in some quarters) of a British super-fight with Khan further down the line but for the moment Khan is looking stateside for his next fight. Another Kevin Mitchell, this time of The Guardian, had an excellent piece in Saturday's paper profiling legendary trainer Freddie Roach who is widely credited with transforming Khan since his defeat to Prescott last year.
And finally, while I'm inclined to agree with Shah Khan on the racism issue, there's no doubt whatsoever that his son seems to attract some very unpleasant comments on online message boards. I was sickened by some of the vile stuff I read on the web after his defeat to Prescott and I've tried to avoid reading the comments left on YouTube ever since. For some reason these message boards appeal to some of the most ignorant, slack-jawed cowards this country has to offer.
Having said that, I'd encourage you to comment on this blog, because, well, it's different.