By Rachel Aylett: Saturday night, 21st September, brings Frank Warren’s first big show of the new season to Britain. It is the first boxing show to be held at the Copper Box Arena in London, one of the 2012 Olympic venues. On first viewing of the line up for this show, it appears to be full of interesting fights. However, on closer inspection, it’s not quite as stacked as it at first seems.
I have already written a preview of the main event, Billy Joe Saunders vs John Ryder, for this web-site. For the record, I believe Saunders will box in the same manner as in his recent victories over Gary O’Sullivan and Matthew Hall and win a fairly clear points decision over Ryder. Ryder, though, looked awesome in his last victory over Frenchman, Yoann Bloyer, and it is an outstanding main event. Saunders’ British middleweight title is at stake.
Turning to the rest of the bill, the main support is the vacant European heavyweight title fight between Britain’s Dereck Chisora and Edmund Gerber from Germany.
It is interesting to note that Gerber is contracted to Sauerland Events, the outstanding promotional outfit in Europe, based in Germany. The Sauerlands are not accustomed to letting their fighters travel outside their European base to take fights, but it seems that they have decided to jettison some of their dead wood. Their last crop of prospects has proved sub-standard and they have apparently decided to cull their line up. Thus, Henry Weber was thrown in with Robert Stieglitz in a challenge for his WBO super-middleweight title; David Graf was sent to Scotland to challenge Stephen Simmons for a WBC-inter title and now Gerber is coming to England to challenge Chisora, a far superior opponent, for the EBU title. All these contests were/are, in essence, a shot to nothing for the German outfit. They have seemingly given up on these fighters, but have secured them major fights on the off chance that they just might win. If they do manage to win, all well and good, but if they lose, nothing has been lost. The bottom line is though, if the Sauerlands have big future plans and expectations for their fighters, they do not relinquish control of their fights by letting them appear on rival promoters’ shows. This tells you everything you need to know about Saturday’s fight.
Gerber actually looked quite impressive whilst coming through the usual record building process. He looked to be very decent with a solid jab and a crunching right hand. However, his fight with American veteran Maurice Harris in May 2012 first indicated his defects. He was clearly outboxed and outjabbed by his hot and cold opponent and got a gift decision from the judges on that occasion. In his next fight he was alarmingly outboxed by on the slide British veteran Michael Sprott, and had lost every round before finding a right hand to floor Sprott and bring about the famous premature fourth round stoppage. Sprott was then brought back three months later when Gerber was given the opportunity to put things right. This backfired though – Sprott managed to keep up his good boxing to the end and was awarded a deserved points decision. If a prospective heavyweight contender can’t deal with Michael Sprott fairly comfortably these days, he is clearly not going much farther.
Gerber is now being thrown to the wolves in the shape of Chisora. When on his game, Dereck is a world top-10 heavyweight. In his last seven fights, he has fought Vitaliy Klitschko, David Haye, Tyson Fury, Malik Scott and Robert Helenius. No other heavyweight in the world has fought such solid competition in the last couple of years and held their own. Although officially losing to four of those opponents, we all know that the Helenius L was really an emphatic W, as Dereck was robbed blind in one of the worst decisions in recent years. There may have been a glimmer of hope for Gerber in that Chisora often turns up for fights in less than top shape. On this occasion though this is highly unlikely, as his last fight against Scott only took place two months ago and I don’t imagine he would have managed to get himself badly out of shape since then. Indeed, veteran boxing scribe Steve Bunce, having spent time with Chisora prior to the Scott fight, said “the penny HAS now dropped” and that Chisora intends to stay in good shape from now on. This is all set up for a Chisora victory then, probably on points, although Gerber does tend to mark up badly to the face and DelBoy may be able to secure a stoppage victory with facial cuts.
Further down the card, British welterweight champion Frankie Gavin has been given what amounts to a gift in order to secure himself ownership of the Lonsdale belt outright, this being his third defence. His opponent is David Barnes, who was British champion at both welterweight, as far back as 2003 and at light-welterweight in 2008. Barnes at his peak never reached world level and, of course, that peak was many years ago. He has not scored a significant victory since July 2008 when he defeated Barry Morrison in defence of the aforementioned British light-welterweight title. He is the proverbial sacrificial lamb for Gavin here and Gavin’s pinpoint accurate jab and body shots should wear Barnes down for a late stoppage. In my opinion, Frankie should then bypass the traditional European title route and head straight for world challenges. Defeating current European champion Leonard Bundu would do nothing to enhance Gavin’s reputation. He is ready to push on now and should be facing the very best opposition.
The most interesting fight on the undercard features two unbeatens in Liam Walsh and Joe Murray, both 14-0, for Walsh’s Commonwealth super-featherweight title. To date, Murray has been the one disappointment to emerge from the British Olympic team of 2008. He has never looked comfortable in the pro game and has recently been struggling against journeyman opponents, even losing rounds to the likes of Dan Naylor and Dai Davies. Walsh himself has had a rather slow-burning career. In his early fights he looked like a shooting star as he sailed through his opposition. Since stepping up to Commonwealth title level though, he has looked less impressive. He was given a life and death struggle in a defence of that title against Scotsman Paul Appleby in September 2011. He was down and very nearly out in the seventh round of that one before somehow staging a remarkable recovery and getting the stoppage victory in the tenth round. This raised doubts about Liam’s punch resistance and these were exacerbated in his next fight against veteran Italian Domenico Urbano when he was visibly shaken twice by the veteran non-puncher. In Liam’s last fight though he boxed well against comebacking Scott Harrison and was never bothered by anything Harrison threw at him. This fight is make or break for Murray. He has been calling for big fights for some time now and this is his big opportunity. We have seen from his amateur career that he has the talent to defeat the likes of Walsh but he has never shown it as a pro. Walsh is a lovely boxer and it would not appear that Murray has the power to take him out of his stride. My tip here then is for Walsh to outbox Murray for a fairly comfortable points win.
Also on the card is Paul Butler, who is given another run out, fighting for a WBO-inter title against undefeated Chilean Miguel Gonzalez. Gonzalez is the South American champion but has never fought outside that hotbed of boxing, Chile. If you can let me know the last world class Chilean boxer I would be grateful. To my knowledge they haven’t had one for many years. They still haven’t! Gonzalez has never fought anyone of note and will be shocked when Butler jumps on him at the first bell like a tiger that has just been let out of its cage. Expect Gonzalez to be the latest victim of Butler’s trademark left hook to the body and to be counted out in the middle rounds. Butler is already starting to appear in the alphabet rankings and this victory will likely propel him higher, certainly with the WBO.
The rest of the card sees run outs for some of Frank Warren’s young pretenders, including Frank Buglioni, Mitchell Smith and Bradley Skeete. All have non-competitive opponents. All in all, a decent looking show, which will be televised on satellite/cable channel BoxNation in the UK.
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