IS BRITISH BOXING GOING BELLY UP?

By Michael Swann

It wasn’t that long ago that British boxing was white hot, with a stable of champions and a fan core of some of the most rabid fans on the planet. Last Saturday night 34 year old Junior Witter, 36-2-2 (21), lost his WBC super lightweight belt to Timothy “Desert Storm” Bradley, 22-0 (11), to become the latest Brit to lose a title in recent months.

Cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli, jr. welterweight Gavin Rees, and light heavyweight Clinton Woods recently lost their belts in the ring. Add to that Ricky Hatton’s loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Joe Calzaghe making comments that he will soon be winding up his career and the British boxing scene is not quite where it was a few short months ago.

The Witter-Bradley affair has to be considered as a major upset. The great majority of the pre fight chatter centered on the prospect, or lack thereof, a Witter-Hatton fight. Hatton doesn’t disguise the fact that he dislikes Witter and didn’t want his nemesis to reap any financial benefit from a fight between the two.

Bradley, on the other hand, was just lucky to be there. He won the right to fight as the mandatory challenger by default when Jose Luis Castillo failed to make weight in their eliminator. On the surface, with no big names on his resume, Bradley was overmatched, particularly fighting out of his home country.

Witter, from Sheffield, England, and Bradley, from Palm Springs, California met in Nottingham, England at the Trent FM Arena in a special Saturday ShoBox on Showtime, broadcast on tape delay. Bradley became the 25th titlist to come from the ShoBox series with his victory.

Not unexpectedly, Bradley was booed when he was introduced; fair enough I guess when you’re fighting away from your home turf. But geez, how could those churls boo our National Anthem, again no less. (They even booed the National Anthem on our home turf at the Mayweather-Hatton fight.)

It’s disrespectful to any country, and their athletes. But given our long history of being allies and the fact that the U.S. saved the British bacon even when the UK was a first rate world power, it would seem that we might have earned some additional respect.

In my humble opinion, if that riff-raff felt an unquenchable desire to boo, they could have started with the ring card girls. The only thing those girls could model would be a harness.

On the other hand, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Natasha Marsh, the English operatic star who sang “God Save the Queen,” was pleasant to look at, even if she did trip over a couple of the opening lyrics.

Witter, normally a quick boxer with two handed power, lost his first fight in nearly eight years despite the home nation advantage mainly because he did so little to deserve the win.

After getting the edge in the early going of a sloppy, ugly fight waged at a snail’s pace. Witter fought early in a southpaw stance with his hand pushed forward almost as a range finder and landed the jab. And then, Witter was dropped just before the bell in the sixth from an overhand right, only the second time in his career that he has been floored.

But even before the knockdown you couldn’t help but think that even if Witter won the fight, the wrestling, clinching, and general ennui of the match was bound to damage his marketability. Actually, it was downright boring.

That right hand, for all practical purposes, took Junior right out of the fight, and the Nottingham crowd as well. It was so eerily silent in the arena that it could as well have been held in a museum.

Bradley suffered some swelling under his right eye in round seven and Witter suffered some swelling and a trickle of blood in that round as well. As the rounds moved on Bradley became more and more physical, working the body and drawing a warning from referee Massimo Barrovechio for the use of his head. But his bull like rushes roughed up the champion, drained him, and Witter appeared to be more and more fatigued with each succeeding round late in the fight.

By round 10 Witter seemed to be totally gassed. Blood began to drip from his left eye in round 11. Witter was showing every one of his 34 years, while Bradley, who had never gone 12 rounds, comparatively seemed as fresh and energetic as a milk fed quarterback.

After the fight both corners held their collective breaths as the judges’ scorecards were tabulated. It’s always difficult to win a decision out of your home country, and there have been worse beatings handed out without a fighter getting the nod on the road.

Bradley had done some good work, but aside from the knockdown he didn’t administer a great number of clean shots himself. Witter had kept the fight ugly enough to keep the outcome in doubt, given that bewildering notion that a challenger has to take the title from a champion.

I saw the fight 116-111 for Bradley, as did Steve Farhood, the cerebral ShoBox analyst, who has seen a few fights in his time. The judges scored a thin split decision, 115-112 for Witter and 115-113 and 114-113 for Bradley. It might have been a tighter margin than demonstrated in the ring, but most importantly, the judges got it right.

In the “Co Main Event,” super middleweight Carl Froch, 23-0 (19), a Nottingham homeboy, won a fourth round mercy TKO over Albert Rybacki, a 37 year old from Poland who took the fight on three days notice.

Froch was to fight Dennis Inkin in an eliminator that was cancelled for the second time. Rubin Williams was penciled in as a replacement, but Rybacki got the call when Williams was unable to make it on time due to “personal problems.”

The eliminator with Inkin was to be for Calzaghe’s WBC belt. But at this point in time, with one more fight or 100, Joe is not into fighting a mandatory. He’s concentrating on fattening his retirement annuity with mega fights.

The 30 year old Froch didn’t appear to be on the level of a Calzaghe, or a Mikkel Kessler for that matter. Not Saturday, not any day.

But they’ll find him a new opponent, and after Calzaghe declines, which he is sure to do, Carl can win a title by beating him.

In spite of their insufferably poor etiquette during the National Anthem, the British fans love and support the sport. Best of all they back it up by buying tickets. 20,000 fans saw the David Haye-Enzo Maccarinelli fight in London, and I’ve read that Ricky Hatton may draw over 50,000 for his comeback fight with Juan Lazcano.

Hatton and Calzaghe are true superstars. Haye, who is moving to heavyweight may have the potential to reach that level. Lightweight Amir Khan is another Brit who appears to be star bound.

Nothing breeds success like success and the spotlight on British boxing has clearly raised the English fighters in class. To what degree we will find out soon.