This Boxing Game

Monday, 29 May 2017

Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee against Spence was exemplary

The criticism levelled at Kell Brook in the wake of his 11th round KO defeat to Errol Spence is a stark reminder that boxing is and always has been a sport of extremes, wherein the very best and the very worst of human nature is exposed. Courage, respect, resilience, and skill is offset in boxing by cowardice, venality, brutality, and cruelty. Typically the former are expressed inside the ring on the part of the fighters, while the latter is the domain of the sport's fans and spectators, many of whom take the opportunity, when watching a fight, to give expression to their own lack of achievements, happiness, or self respect by taking delight in misfortune to befall a given fighter whose only crime is to have dedicated his life to the hardest sport there is and achieve a level of fame, success, and admiration conversant with that dedication.

Every fighter who climbs through the ropes immediately puts his health and life at risk. This is a truth well known, yet regardless far too many dismiss it, preferring to view those who do risk their lives in the name of sport as mere commodities, their humanity diminished, more machines than men.

Kell Brook's courage in taking a knee in the 11th round against Spence, rather than continue and risk permanent damage up to and including blindness, was exemplary, marking him out as a true champion and role model. The idea, the ludicrous idea, that he should have fought on to bring boxing into disrepute by turning it into a savage spectacle, this is an indictment of the intelligence and base instincts of his critics.

Brook gave his all against Spence, outboxing and outfighting the American for much of the fight, but in the end he is a human being, of bone and blood, and when one of those bones break and he can't see are we seriously suggesting he should have risked permanent damage just to burnish his credentials as a 'warrior'?

Fellow professional and world cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew was particularly scathing of Brook for taking the knee when he did, accusing him of quitting in his role as pundit for Sky. This is particularly lamentable given Bellew's status and clout in the sport after defeating an injured David Haye in dramatic fashion in his own previous fight. It is worth recalling that in the build-up to that contest most people - myself included - agreed wholeheartedly with Bellew in his criticisms of David Haye's ugly rhetoric, pledging to put him in hospital and leave him unconscious.

You can't have it both ways Tony - you can't slam Brook for refusing to allow himself to sustain permanent damange while lambasting Haye for promising to dole out permanent damage to you. Furthermore you make a point of continually reminding people that your priority when it comes to boxing is making sure that you get home safely to your wife and kids, and you are absolutely right to do so. But surely you also recognise and support the right of Kell Brook to make it home safely to his family after he fights?

Perhaps the drama of the occasion took over and Tony Bellew's judgement was temporarily clouded by emotion. Hopefully in the coming days, as the smoke clears, he realises that he was wrong to attack Kell Brook, a fellow professional and a fighter who has been a credit to the sport over many years. Perhaps, with this in mind, Tony Bellew will be big enough take back his words and apologise.

Boxing is such a unique and compelling sport in that it walks a line between barbarism and nobility. Ensuring that it remains on the right side of this line is surely the most important priority of everyone who loves the sport. Kell Brook, in taking the knee when he did, ensured that he stayed on the right side of this line. As such, not only did he save himself, he saved the sport.

As none other than Aristotle reminds us, "The brave man is called rash by the coward, and cowardly by the rash man."

Former IBF welterweight champion, Kell Brook, is a brave man.

Monday, 8 May 2017

Anthony Joshua - Hero or Hype

By all accounts Anthony Joshua is a decent human being, an inordinately wealthy young fighter who hasn’t forgotten his roots and who always makes time for the fans. His recent decision to buy his old amateur coach a new BMW was notable in this regard, though the fact that a film was made and released of him doing so says much about a hype machine which after just 18 professional fights against a hodgepodge of journeymen, domestic-level opposition, and fading contenders, sees the 27 year old IBF heavyweight champion faces a 41 year old Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley Stadium in front of 90,000 fans amid more fanfare than your average royal pageant. It is testament to the timeless words attributed to the great 19th century American showman, P T Barnum: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The hype with which Joshua is being sold not only as an elite heavyweight, despite his record, but as a sporting icon and national role model in the UK, reaches its nadir with the new ad released by Under Armour. The US sportswear outfit bought over the rights to Ali’s name and image in the wake of his death, and in the ad we see footage of a young Ali juxtaposed with footage of Joshua in action. The inference being made both are cut from the same cloth, that they belong in the same category, is an insult not only to Ali’s legacy but even more grievously to the truth.

Ali, by way of a reminder, faced and defeated the likes of Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, George Foreman, and the US government in his career. Thus far Joshua has faced Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin, and Eric Molina. Thus not only does Joshua not belong in the same category as Muhammad Ali, he isn’t even walking on the same planet.

Hype and heavyweight boxing have always occupied two sides of the same coin. The most famous example of a hyped up heavyweight involved the Italian giant Primo Carnera. During the ill-starred 1930s boxing decade, when ringside at championship fights across America you would see more mafia hoodlums than could fit in a black mariah, Carnera was propelled as a great white hope by dint not of his ability in the ring but on the back of one of the most remarkable PR and promotional jobs ever seen. Initially managed and trained by Leon See, the Frenchman who discovered him plying his trade as a circus strongman and wrestling act in France, and who was described by the US sportswriter Paul Gallico as “one of the most intelligence, smart and wily men that ever turned a fighter loose from his corner,” Carnera inevitably fell into the clutches of the mob. Thereafter one after the other his opponents took a dive, allowing the 6’7″ giant to actually believe he was as great as they said he was, a master of defensive fighting who carried TNT in his fists.

It was a lie that ended tragically when his ‘management’ eventually ran out of excuses and they were forced to expose him to genuine opposition. This opposition came most brutally in the person of Joe Louis at Yankee Stadium on June 25, 1935, when despite giving away 65lbs in weight, the Brown Bomber bludgeoned his hapless opponent with merciless combinations until the referee stepped in to save him in the 6th round. Back to Gallico: “He [Carnera] had nothing. His title was gone, his money squandered by the gang. And the one thing he thought he had, an unbeatable skill in defence and an irresistible crushing power in attack that no man living could withstand, never existed. It was a fable as legendary as the great giants of mythology that he resembled.”

Not for a second can Britain’s Anthony Joshua be compared to Primo Carnera. The former Olympic gold medalist possesses genuine boxing ability, power, and has real potential. The point is that at this stage of his career he is yet to achieve the greatness in the ring to match the profile he currently enjoys outside it. Indeed, the disjunction between both is an achievement that belongs to a team of whom the most public face is Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn, a man who looks like he collects Rolex watches like your average 10 year old collects toy soldiers. Hearn is only the latest in a long line of boxing impressarios whose stock in trade is the identifying, packaging and selling of fighters to a gullible general public. As with every promoter who has gone before, his dream, his is to find that rare diamond in the rough in the form of a fighter who is able to cross over into mainstream stardom, it’s the equivalent of winning the lottery. Such a fighter Hearn has clearly found in Anthony Joshua.

But as with Primo Carnera, and as with Frank Bruno when he faced Mike Tyson, hype eventually crashes against the rocks of reality. If Joshua loses to an ageing Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley the ensuing damage limitation will centre on his lack of experience at the elite level compare to Klitschko, and how he deserves huge credit for taking this challenge at such an early stage in his career. However if he emerges victorious he will be regaled as the toast not only of heavyweight boxing but British sport as a whole, with brands flocking to offer him even more lucrative sponsorship deals than those he already has and Eddie Hearn smiling all the way to his local Bentley dealership.

Sunday, 5 March 2017

David Haye and Tony Bellew served up more drama than Shakespeare

In terms of drama, excitment, and raw emotion, Haye vs Bellew was a classic that will be talked about and debated for years to come. The inordinate bad blood that flowed in the lead up made the stakes involved higher than most world title fights have in recent times. That it also brought the sport into disrepute is a feeling that will not be shared by Eddie Hearn or Sky Sports given the number of PPV buys it undoubtedly generated precisely because of the bad blood and vicious pre-fight rhetoric, most of it from David Haye.

But placing that to one side for a moment, Haye proved beyond doubt that scratch the surface of the playboy image and lifestyle he is known for, you have man with the blood of a warrior flowing through his veins. The way he refused to quit despite carrying a ruptured Achilles for five rounds was unbelievable, with the sight of him hobbling around the ring conjuring the image from ancient history of a Spartan or Roman gladiator for whom death is preferable to surrender.

That said, along with the vast majority of fans, pundits, and former fighters, Haye came into the fight fully expecting to blast his opponent out of there within one or two rounds. It was evident in a performance that calls into question his future in the game. He appeared slower, more ponderous, and one dimensional than the Haye of old, loading up on wild single hooks and right hands, as if expecting Bellew to stand still and take them. It was only when he settled down after the third and started using the jab more prodigiously, particularly to the body, that he began to take the fight and his opponent seriously. He was in control of the fight up until he sustained his Achilles injury in the sxith round, pressing the action and throwing more than Bellew, whose gameplan of avoiding unnecesssary shots and taking the fight into the later rounds was working a treat. He and his coach Dave Coldwell had made no secret of their gameplan, one they'd devised in the belief that Haye would start drowning after four or five rounds. Bellew moved well for those first six rounds, consistently spinning off and away whenever Haye closed the distance. That said, the former cruiserweight and heavyeweight world champion's habit of following Bellew around the ring instead of cutting him off provided the Liverpudlian and current WBC cruiserweight champion with the opportunity to do so.

Both men started seriously gassing in the second half of the fight. Bellew came close to punching himself out trying to finish Haye in the sixth and seventh rounds, realising he was seriously injured. By this point it was only a matter of time before Bellew's hand was raised. The sixth was the most explosive of the fight, during which both fighters hit the canvas, Bellew once and Haye twice, though none were ruled knockdowns by the referee. It was now, with Haye injured, that sustained the momentum shifted decisively in Bellew's favour. From now to the end Haye was reduced to throwing the odd desperate big shot, fuelled by forlorn hope rather than serious intent. The rumours that he may have been carrying an Achilles injury in the final few days prior to the fight looked to have been true. Indeed, watching his ring entrance a second time a slight limp looks apparent as he makes his way to the ring to the trademark seventies disco classic 'Ain't No Stopping Us Now' by McFadden & Whitehead. As he did, Bellew in the ring appeared the most relaxed man in the building, taking the opportunity to have a dance as he waited for his opponent to arrive. This alone should be a YouTube classic.

Shane McGuigan was right to throw in the towel in the eleventh round after Haye fell through the ropes at the end of a Bellew combination. By now he was running on sheer will, courage, and pride, adding a tragic element to the denouement. Only the hardest of hearts could argue that Haye's warrior courage does not mitigate his distasteful rhetoric during the build-up. But as mentioned, the harsh reality is that however distasteful and vicious Haye's verbiage it sold the fight as no other fight has been sold in Britain in recent years, perhaps with the exception of the Froch vs Groves rematch. In this regard we're all culpable when it comes to a sport that all too often plumbs depths of indecency that no sport should ever be permitted to. Having made that point, however, boxing is the only sport that reaquaints us with animal instincts that have been blunted after centuries of civilisation and culture. Those instincts see the most base and virtuous aspects of the human condition laid bare, which is what makes boxing so compelling.

When it comes to David Haye the burning question has now been answered. Though he was in control of the fight before his Achilles went, he is not the fighter of old. His speed, timing, and agility even prior to the injury were noticeably diminished compared to the peak model of old. His body is now breaking down in the face of the rigours of too many training camps. Haye was never a natural heavyweight, which means that the wear and tear sustained after consistently sparring and fighting proper heavyweights has taken a grievous toll. Though along with Tony Bellew, Haye talked up the prospect of a rematch during the post fight interviews, there will likely not be a huge appetite to see one.

As for Tony Bellew, the big Liverpudlian and Evertonian has made a career out of proving the army of naysayers where he's concerned wrong. Though in defeating Haye he beat a man who was reduced to hobbling around on one leg for five rounds, Haye was gracious enough in defeat not to enter the injury as an excuse for the loss, and neither should anybody else. Haye was expected to roll over Tony Bellew in one or two rounds. That he failed to was in itself a victory for a fighter was was giving away a stone in bodyweight.

Bellew's gesture immediately after the fight was stopped in shoving promoter Eddie Hearn away in order to minister to Haye
should see him elevate to cult status even in the eyes of his detractors.

Thursday, 2 March 2017

David Haye talks and looks like a man ready for war

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At the recent Haye-Bellew press conference in Liverpool, which was open to the public, something remarkable took place. We saw Haye emerge from it as the villain while Tony Bellew found himself slotted in to the role of the good guy - the wholesome family man who unlike Haye is in boxing for all the right reasons. Now just think about that for a second. Tony 'Bomber' Bellew, a fighter who's spent his entire professional career unleashing tirades of invective at his opponents in the lead up to fights, whose every second or third word is usually an expletive, a man infamous for his bullying and intimidatory antics, suddenly this guy is being depicted as a poster boy for family values and proper etiquette.

David Haye's tirade at the presser came after he'd endured dog's abuse from a crowd that was there baying for his blood. In parenthesis, was there really any need for this particular press conference less than a week before the fight? And, if so, what were Sky and Matchroom thinking opening it up to the public? Surely this was just asking for trouble and the kind of controversy that the sport doesn't need?

Haye's reference to the crowd as "retards" earned him the kind of opprobrium usually reserved for rapists or serial killers. Yet not a peep have we heard in protest at Tony Bellew's repeated use of misogynistic language - i.e. "The Bitch from Bermondsey." In fact during Haye's speech at the podium in Liverpool, Bellew interrupted him with "You got that right bitch!"

Surely if Haye is to be hung out to dry for the crime of offensive language and bad taste, so should his opponent.

But, listen, this is boxing. These guys are ready mentally and physically and emotionally to go to war. Add to the mix the genuine hatred that they have for each other, and what do people expect?

Aside from that, the public workout both fighters had with just three days to go dispelled any rumours that Haye's been having problems with his previously injured right shoulder, or that he was suffering from an achilles problem and is on the verge of pulling out. Yet again the Haye camp has proved adept at mind games. Whether it's the footage of Haye supposedly training on a yacht in South Beach, Miami, or sitting in a Jacuzzi sipping protein shakes from a cocktail glasses, or his highly publicised visit to his doctor in Munich, they' ve succeeded in giving the impression that Haye's preparations have been less than rigorous and injury-free.

The exact opposite looks to be the case. The physical nick Haye is in, revealed during his brief public workout when he removed his T-shirt, tells its own story. He isn't carrying an ounce of extraenous weight, either fat or muscle tissue, and the snap that he's renowned for clearly hasn't deserted him either. On the contrary, Haye's never looked sharper or more focused than he does for this contest, putting his shots together with speed and fluidity. His trainer Shane McGuigan, a guy who looks like he belongs in a Harry Potter movie poster instead of a boxing gym, revealed that Haye has sparred 60 rounds with Bryant Jennings for the fight, which means he's had excellent work and ideal preparation.

Tony Bellew, meanwhile, appears a solid unit going in. He claims he's prepared for a "dogfight", while asserting that Haye no longer has the minerals for what he intends to bring. If he and Dave Coldwell, his trainer and friend, are to be believed the gameplan is to take the fight into the later rounds and drown Haye in the kind of gut-testing slugfest he isn't built or ready for.

The smart money says Bellew will be asleep long before that happens. Judging by what we've seen this week, it is hard to disagree.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Haye v Bellew - the countdown

With just one week to go before David Haye and Tony Bellew step into the ring at the O2 Arena in London to settle accounts in one of the most bitter grudge matches British boxing has seen in some time, the cultural and lifestyle differences between both fighters could not be more stark.

While Haye has made the luxurious environs of South Beach, Miami a feature of his training camp, tirelessly posting pics and videos of himself cavorting around a luxury yacht, where he claims he's spent much of his time training, or on the beach meditating and relaxing between sessions, or hanging out with various celebrity friends, Bellew has emphasised his working class down to earth roots, his love of family and Everton FC, while training in the cold and rain of Sheffield in the accustomed manner, suffering for his craft as he batters and bludgeons his body and mind into shape for, this, the biggest test of his career.

It has been a study in contrast that has added even more anticipation to a fight that really didn't need any, given the river of bad blood that exists between both men.

Of the two, Haye's preparations have left fans and pundits guessing. From the pictures and videos posted on social media, the impression given is that of someone who's spent the winter enjoying an extended trip to a luxury health farm, living it up at the beach and on a luxury yacht, where we've seen him sitting in a jacuzzi sipping protein shakes from a cocktail glass. The images offend the conventional and purist belief in professional boxing as an exercise in self denial, wherein success in the ring is measured by the amount of pain and hardship and suffering a fighter is able to endure. Fighters preparing for the ring, especially a fight of his magnitude, are meant to avoid luxury and comfort as a vampire avoids daylight, knowing it can only weaken the resolve, dedication, and single minded ferocity that are non-negotiable requirements of their physical and psychological makeup.

But has Haye, with the beachboy image that he's cultivated leading up to this fight, only succeeded in pulling the wool over people's eyes, engaging in the art of mind games with all his posing and cavorting in Miami? The answer is undeniably yes. Make no mistake, the 36 year old 'Bitch from Bermondsey' will have trained like the proverbial beast for this fight, using the warm weather to his advantage for the purposes of recovery and keeping his core body temperature at the optimum level when it comes to conditioning. Pics of his chiselled physique tell their own story, though Haye knows as much as anyone that what goes on inside the squared circle has nothing to do with rippling muscles and everything to do with skill, speed, power, movement, and conditioning.

On paper, in every one of those categories, Haye is superior. He's faster, hits harder, moves better, and has more variety to his game. Not that Tony Bellew is a mug. Far from it. The cruiserweight world champion is a fighter's fighter, a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and has made a habit of proving the naysayers and doubters wrong. He is as tough and as durable as they come, willing to go to places most are not in order to win. But his style could not be better made for David Haye. He stands tall, has a habit of letting his hands drop, and when the leather starts flying he often lapses into the habit of coming forward in front of his jab rather than behind it.

That said, Bellew is right in claiming that he will be Haye's toughest test in many years, something which he and Dave Coldwell, his friend and trainer, believe will be a crucial factor. Both do not believe that Haye has enough in the tank to go beyond four rounds and maintain the pace and intensity that Bellew intends to bring. They are also right in citing the fact that by the time Haye dispatched Derek Chisora in the 5th round of their clash back in 2012, he was tiring. But Haye will be coming in considerably lighter for this fight, and is clearly as motivated as he's ever been. His oft repeated assertion that Bellew will be carried out on a stretcher, as distasteful and unbecoming such rhetoric may be, is no empty boast. Haye is coming into this fight with the intention of doing damage.

What people seem to underestimate when it comes to David Haye, perhaps understandably given his love of the limelight and celebrity lifestyle, is how tough he is. Aggressive opponents such as Chisora and Bellew seem to bring out a mean side in him that contradicts the cultivated and urbane image he's gone out of his way to present over the years. In fact he appears to revel in these types of grudge matches, and despite the trash talk that comes his way when they come up, he's never phased or intimidated.

Tony Bellew's key to winning is his ability to take Haye's best shots and to keep coming forward, setting a relentless pace that his opponent isn't comfortable with. Keeping him on the back foot and finding the opportunity to fire that ferocious left hook he carries will be on his mind from the opening bell. Haye, meanwhile, will be looking to employ lateral movement to nullify Bellew's pressure, looking for angles and gaps, of which he and McGuigan are confident will be plentiful.

Haye's power, how Bellew copes with it, will be the most important single factor in determining the outcome to proceedings on March 4. If Haye starts firing and Bellew doesn't go anywhere, it could be the longest night of David Haye's career in many a year. With Bellew also carrying some serious juice in his hands, this has all the hallmarks of a ferocious contest.

When it ends let's hope the only stretcher involved is the one needed to carry home the pile of money each fighter is set to walk away with - money that even if this contest comes close to living up to the hype will be more than deserved.

Monday, 26 December 2016

Why boxing needs Chris Eubank Sr

Watching Chris Eubank Sr's Christmas Day interview with IFL TV's Kugan Cassius, I was reminded of the salient words of Oscar Wilde: "Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities."

Combining the style of a 19th century dandy and pride associated with a Roman gladiator, Eubank exists on a different plane than anyone else in boxing. He attracts ridicule for daring to try and elevate in word and deed the sport to its rightful place as one in which timeless virtues of courage, skill, honour, and resilience are reaffirmed. In this respect, he understands that when two highly trained and developed fighters meet in the centre of the ring, it is not only a battle of fists and wills that ensues but also a merging of the human spirit. In the process they transform one another and themselves, undergoing the kind of spiritual cleansing that can only come with pushing one another to the very limits of human endurance and pain. It is why when the Irish rebel Terence MacSwinney opined that it is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer, he could have been describing a sport that is as old as humanity itself.

It is this very philosophy - the philosophy of the ages, no less - that Eubank Sr has embraced in his approach to the fight game. In response he has attracted not only ridcule but even contempt from those for whom the sport is reduced to a a business and glorified scrap. Such a facile rendering of the sport has done much to push it towards the long grass of mediocrity and cynicism, forced to compete with MMA and WWE wrestling as a result.

This contempt for Chris Eubank Sr from some in the game has reached the point where promoter Eddie Hearn has seen fit to rip the piss out of the man by impersonating his voice. Just pause to consider how perverse it is to have a man who's probably never thrown a punch in anger in his entire life, laughing at one of the bravest and toughest men ever to lace up a pair of boxing gloves. Love or loathe the man, you cannot but respect the way he insists on ploughing his own furrow. It is why the likes of Hearn and Warren find him so difficult to deal with, the fact he refuses to bow down and accept anything less than the cream when it comes to managing his very able son's career.

Some of the points he made during his recent IFL interview were impossible to argue with - such as the fact that it is the fighters not the promoters who should receive the lion's share of revenue generated by marquee fights; such as the fact there is nobody better qualified than he to steer his son or be in his corner; such as the fact that promoters are in it for the money more than anything else; and such as the fact he has proved in his own career the wisdom of his methods, however "deluded" they may have and continue to appear to others.

Watching him take time to consider his words, his determination to articulate himself as powerfully and eloquently as he can, is a refreshing reminder that while undoubtedly a brutal sport, boxing does not need to be approached brutishly.

Eubank Sr is also quite correct to point out that his son is one of the most explosive and exciting fighters around. However as to him "wrecking Golovokin", this is debatable. Having said that, nobody thought he had a prayer going in against the wrecking machine that was Nigel Benn back in 1990, did they? With both he and Eubank Jr supremely confident of the outcome to this fight, when it eventually comes, it's already guaranteed to be a riveting prospect.

The sport of boxing needs characters like Chris Eubank Sr. After all, just as in life itself, for those who excel we are talking a game that is chess not chequers.

Monday, 19 December 2016

Bernard Hopkins v Father Time - there could only be one winner

The age-worn truth that in boxing Father Time is undefeated springs to mind with regard to the emphatic and sad end to the ring career of Bernard Hopkins, punched out of the ring by WBC International light heavyweight champion Joe Smith Jr in the 8th round of their clash at the Los Angeles Forum at the weekend.

It was an especially cruel denounement to the career of a fighter, in Hopkins, who goes out as one of the finest middleweights to ever grace the ring, and who over the last decade had successfully carved out a niche for himself as a fighter for whom Father Time was less a biological fact and more a minor inconvenience. To his credit, he had us all fooled into believing him - believing that, yes, he was so special and unique that he could go on as long as he wanted. We allowed ourselves to consider him a permanent fixture in the ring, convinced that someone so freakishly dedicated to the sport in all its various aspects, who lived the life like no other fighter on the planet, whose attention to every detail was obsessive and who was never less than in top shape, had managed to transcend the ageing process as no Beverly Hills plastic surgeon ever could.

We were wrong. And so was he.

His defeat, the manner of it, was a rude awakening. It brought us to our senses, or at least should have brought us to those senses, when it comes to the notion of putting a 27 year old in the ring with a 51 year old. No matter how dedicated, how great his career, such a notion could only ever be delusional, one that should never have been entertained for a second. And with due respect to Smith an in-prime, even past-prime Hopkins would not have lost a minute of any round in a fight against an opponent of this calibre. However this was not a past-prime fighter in there, it was a man whose pride in thinking he could defy Mother Nature proved his undoing. It bears repeating: in so doing he and those around him were guilty of lapsing into delusion.

Yet we find ourselves in an era in boxing which delusion is the new normal. Consider the evidence. Britain's Amir Khan believing he stood a chance against Canelo given the size difference - delusional: Kell Brook moving up two weight classes to face the hardest-hitting middleweight the sport has seen in generations and believing he stood a chance - delusional: Tony Bellew believing he can match David Haye for power at heavyweight - delusional: and worst of all, Conor McGregor believing he can transition from MMA to boxing and share a ring with Floyd Mayweather - utterly delusional.

The aforementioned does not describe boxing as the sport we all know and love, it describes boxing as a circus - a sport so fixated on PPV buys and generating revenue for promoters and TV networks it has lost touch with its soul.

There is a wider social and cultural issue involved here. Boxing, like every other sport, does not exist in a social or cultural vacuum. To a large extent it reflects the times we live in; and we are living in a time where spectacle is everything and integrity is nothing. In boxing this lack of integrity is not a malaise suffered by those who fight. Far from it. Fighters such as Bernard Hopkins and Kell Brook are the epitome of integrity, men who have earned every plaudit and every purse they ever won. But the system that controls boxing, never known for its purity of heart, has turned into a squalid corporate and money making racket, worse in many ways than it was under the mob back in the day. At least back then the sport and its fans were being humped by people with personality.

The woeful lack of honest boxing writing and journalism is another crucial aspect in boxing's decline as a sport and reinvention as a circus. Most of those we rely on to report on the fights are little more than PR secretaries for promoters and the networks. Holding the sport's powers that be to account on behalf of the fans is a thing of the past, with writers knowing that if they do they will suddenly find their applications for press passes denied and, with it, the privilege of being ringside and close to the action. The result is a chasm between what's being reported and what we see with our own eyes.

In boxing, despite what any promoter or fighter says, weight divisions matter, size matters, and age matters. Bernard Hopkins deserved better than to go out on the back of such a humiliating defeat. What he gave to the sport, his old school style, science, and ring smarts, married to a backstory that is the stuff of movies, elevated him to a venerated position in in the sport. But ulitmately, as clever and astute as he undoubtedly is, that bugbear of every fighter who can't let it go, vanity, got the better of him in the end. His fight against Joe Smith Jr was not boxing it was something else.

The sooner we get back to boxing the better.