By Andy James: After reading articles on boxingnews24.com for the past year or so now, I have decided to write an article of my own. I thought for my first article I would write about some of the fights I would like to see in rest of 2010, starting with domestic fights here in Britain.
John Murray vs. Kevin Mitchell
John Murray’s last performance was an impressive 11th round stoppage of Gary Buckland in which he added the European lightweight title to his British title. Murray is good fighter with decent power, who likes to fight on the inside and should be fighting for a world title within next year.
In contrast Kevin Mitchell is coming off a devastating 3rd round TKO defeat against Michael Katsidis, which has probably ended any chance of world title shot for him any time soon; Mitchell is still only 25 years old and has plenty of time to fight for a world title before the end of his career.
This would be excellent fight between two fighters who one day will be world champions and it would get winner one step closer to that dream. It’s difficult to predict the winner of this one, as we don’t know how the defeat for Mitchell will affect him in future, hopefully he will come back as good as ever, sticking with his new style which helped him beat Breidis Prescott but also trading punches with his opponents as he did before.
Darren Barker vs. Matthew Macklin
This is a fight that fans in Britain have wanted to see for a while now, both fights are undefeated at middleweight with Macklin’s two defeats coming at light middleweight. Barker is the European champion and looks on the verge of world level. Barker is a well rounded boxer with good movement, fast hands and decent power. His last performance wasn’t the best I have seen from him, when he beat Affif Belghecham by unanimous decision to win the European crown.
Macklin has been in great form since his last defeat against Jamie Moore in 2006 and also looks on the verge of world level, his two best performances came last year first of all stopping Wayne Elcock in 3rd round to claim the British middleweight title in March and then in his next fight in September stopping veteran Amin Asikainen in the 1st round to win the European title knocking him down twice before the referee stopped the fight.
This could go either way, if Macklin wins it would probably be an early stoppage but if it went to a decision Barker would probably win. What ever the result it would be a great fight to watch and a good possibly opponent for the winner would be former WBC and WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik.
That’s it for the domestic fights in Britain, now for the world level fights and I will start with obvious one.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao
This is the fight the world has wanted to see ever since Mayweather announced he was coming out of retirement to face Juan Manuel Marquez last year. The problem has always been blood testing that Mayweather has insisted he wants all his future opponents to take. Now that Mosley did it, Pacquiao has agreed to do it as well with a 14 day cut off point. That means that this fight should be made for some point this year as everything was agreed earlier this year but the negotiations broken down because of the blood testing asked for by Mayweather, sounds like a done deal but I will very surprised if it’s that easy.
Mayweather’s last fight was one sided decision win against Shane Mosley, a fight in which many people thought he struggle against a bigger welterweight but he completely out classed Mosley using his quick countering style. Pacquiao is also coming off a one sided victory against Joshua Clottey, a fight which everyone know he was going to win but at the end of the fight he was a lot marked up than we are used to seeing him and considering Clottey didn’t throw that many punches it showed Pacquiao weakness is his defence.
My prediction for this fight is that it will be a great fight with Pacquiao catching Mayweather a few times with big shots early in the fight, which will make Pacquiao going looking for the KO, leaving himself open for Mayweather who will be too quick and counter him all night. Mayweather wins unanimous decision.
David Haye vs. Wladimir Klitschko
Haye’s last fight his first defence of his WBA heavyweight title was an impressive 9th round TKO stoppage against John Ruiz. Ruiz is fighter known for having solid chin but Haye managed to knock him down 4 times before Ruiz’s corner rightly stop the fight in the 9th round. Haye’s previous fight against giant Nikolay Valuev less impressive, this was a fight where Haye ducked and dodged Valuev all night throwing about 10 punches in each round. This is not the way we are used to seeing Haye fight and although he rocked the big Russian in the final round he was very lucky to get the decision.
Klitschko dominated Eddie Chambers in his last fight with 12th round KO victory, it was one sided fight with him winning every round before he knocked Chambers out with a left hook to the head which ended the fight 5 seconds before the final bell. 20th June 2009 was the original date Klitschko was meant to fight David Haye but Haye pulled out with back injury and was replaced by Ruslan Chagaev. This was another fight that Klitschko dominated and looked more aggressive than in previous fights. The fight finished with Chagaev refusing to come out for the 10th round.
My prediction for this fight is Haye will be too quick Klitschko and could knock him out in the middle rounds but if Haye gets caught by a big punch by Klitschko he will be in big trouble either way I think we would see a knock out.
Amir Khan vs. Timothy Bradley
After his one round demolition of Dmitriy Salita, Khan recently beat Paulie Malignaggi by TKO in the 11th round. The fight was one sided as Khan was too quick and accurate for Malignaggi and the fight was nearly stopped by the doctor at the end of the 10th round, the fight was eventually stopped by the referee when Khan had Paulie on the robes looking for the knock out. Khan defence has improved a lot since Freddie Roach became his trainer and he has started to move more instead standing and trading with his opponents, this has made him a completely different fighter and a better one.
Timothy Bradley is the best light welterweight in the world and seems to keep getting better since the first time I seen him against Junior Witter when he won WBC light welterweight title. In his last fight he out classed Lamont Peterson winning by unanimous decision. Bradley looks the complete boxer and hits hard as well, he could become the next big superstar of boxing if he cleans the light welterweight division and moves up to welterweight to face the big names in that division like Khan is claiming he wants to do.
Khan needs to fight the best in division if he wants to be a big star in America and Bradley is the best in the division. Unfortunately for Khan if this fight happened I can only see one winner Timothy Bradley he is a better boxer than Khan and hits too hard, even with Khan’s improved defence he’s still going to caught against top level fighter and will probably get knocked out again.
Thanks for reading my article, any feedback or advice about my writing would very welcome.
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