The Oz Report: Browne promises to return, Hogan wishes Kilrain Kelly a happy holiday, Tszyu added to Revolution card, Horn-Crawford TV quandary, Akkawy sparring Canelo, Goodall set for pro debut, Dib upset, Hosking Promotions @ Peter Maniatis join forces
By Anthony Cocks
Heavyweight Lucas Browne’s career on the world stage came to a grinding halt on Saturday night when he was starched by a Dillian Whyte left hook thirty seconds into the sixth round at the O2 Arena in London.
It wasn’t just the fight result that put the brakes on his world title aspirations, but the five round beatdown that preceded it.
At 38-years-old and with less than two rounds of action to his name in the previous two years, it was always going to be a big ask for the 6-foot-5, 265-pound former bouncer. But with an 88% knockout ratio, he always figured to be in with a chance.
Browne spent some time on the canvas out cold after the fight-ending punch. He was given oxygen and eventually left the arena on a stretcher.
After the fight he was transported to the Royal London Hospital where he was given a CT scan and his torn left eye was stitched up. Browne blamed impaired vision from his cut eye for his poor performance.
“It wasn’t my night and massive respect to Dillian Whyte for his performance,” Browne told his followers on Twitter. “My eye was giving me trouble from the second and you can’t protect from what you can’t see.
“I’m all good and I will be back.”
Browne was on a plane back to Sydney the day after the fight. The long flight must have given him plenty of time to reflect on the bout.
“Boxing is just as much a mental game as it is a physical one,” said Browne to his followers on Instagram. “I wasn’t in the right frame of mind going into the fight as I should have been, but inactivity, a sh#t prep, four months away from your family, and constant f@ckups will affect you.”
The Rodney Williams-trained fighter insists the Whyte fight will only make him a better boxer in the long run.
“This is not only a loss but a learning opportunity for me,” said Browne. “I’m already planning my comeback and want to say thank-you to all my fans around the world, the support has been truly amazing. All my sponsors for the constant support, and not to mention my team, and my family.”
If Browne does decide to continue his boxing career there are two or three likely opponents waiting for him in his own backyard.
Former world title challenger Alex Leapai called out Browne last year ahead of his return to the ring against Thomas Peato last October, who he stopped in three. Browne had made his own return to the ring four months earlier against Matthew Greer after 15 months on the sidelines, knocking him out in two.
Undefeated Australian heavyweight champion Demsey McKean 11-0 (5) would make another worthwhile opponent. Never short on confidence, the 6-foot-6 southpaw “Tower of Terror” from Ipswich, Queensland would fancy his chances against the former WBA “regular” titleholder.
Then across the ditch there’s Junior Fa, 14-0 (8). At 6-foot-5 and roughly 265-pounds the 28-year-old Papakura heavyweight is about the same as Browne and in his physical prime. He is also at the right stage of his career to start stepping up his level of competition.
But first things first. Browne has to sit down with his team and his family and decide what he wants to get out of the sport from here. The square circle is the last place someone should be if they’re not fully committed.
DENNIS HOGAN TELLS JIMMY KILRAIN KELLY TO ENJOY HIS AUSSIE HOLIDAY
WBO number two ranked junior middleweight Dennis “Hurricane” Hogan 26-1-1 (7) had some choice advice for WBO number three Jimmy Kilrain Kelly 23-1 (9) ahead of their clash at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on April 7.
In a recent interview with T2T Boxing, Hogan says he has been amused by the 25-year-old Mancunian’s social media posts but can’t envisage a scenario where he wins.
“Most of it’s funny, I’ve had a bit of a laugh,” said Hogan, who will be defending his WBO Oriental title while Kelly stakes his WBO Intercontinental belt on the fight.
“But I don’t know where he’s coming from, I can’t see how he’s going to win this fight. He’s ranked below me everywhere and he does a lot of talking, so perhaps that’s what gets him these big fights. But I’m going to be winning this fight.
“Maybe he’s just lucky to be coming to Australia for a bit of a holiday with his team before heading back to the drawing board.”
The 33-year-old Brisbane-based Irishman is confident in his conditioning and says that training alongside the likes of WBO welterweight champ Jeff Horn, Joe Goodall, Nathan Webber and others at the Stretton Boxing Club pushes him to new limits every single day.
“You couldn’t get any better around the world,” said Hogan. “The type of sparring that’s going on in the gym right now, people should be paying [to watch], it’s phenomenal. I’ve been sparring with Alex and Joe and Jeff and other blokes coming in, Nathan, Cameron, it’s phenomenal what’s going on in there and we’re all lifting each other.”
Hogan, whose lone loss came to WBA interim junior middleweight champion Jack Culcay on points in Germany three years ago, was perplexed by a recent post by Kelly on social media.
“Jimmy Kelly said that training camp is easy and he enjoys it,” said Hogan. “Well that just means he’s not training hard enough. I’m really working hard and I’ll be getting a great win against him.”
Coach Glenn Rushton, who put together the successful 10-point plan that Jeff Horn used to great effect bring down Manny Pacquiao last July, has put together another master plan for the Hogan-Kelly bout.
“We’ve got a phenomenal game plan for Jimmy Kelly and we definitely know every movement he makes, inside and out. I’ll be able to counteract all of that,” said Hogan.
“That’s as much as I’m going to give away on camera.”
TSZYU 2.0 ADDED TO HOGAN-KELLY UNDERCARD
With less than a fortnight to go until the big DDP Sports “Revolution” card headlined by Dennis Hogan versus Jimmy Kilrain Kelly, the burgeoning Brisbane promoter continues to add compelling contests to the already stacked undercard.
Undefeated junior middleweight bomber Tim Tszyu 7-0 (5), the son of former undisputed junior welterweight champion and Hall of Fame inductee Kostya Tszyu, will take on Kiwi southpaw Ruben Webster 8-0 in an intriguing six round bout.
DDP Sports and their matchmaker Stuart Duncan have done a tremendous job of matching the boxers in competitive bouts where the winners aren’t a foregone conclusion.
Thirteen of the sixteen boxers featured on the eight-bout card have had two losses or less, with seven of them entering the ring undefeated.
It is this sort of competitive matchmaking that will get fight fans back at ringside and, just as importantly, coming back for more.
NEW DATE FOR JEFF HORN VS TERENCE CRAWFORD CLASH CAUSES TV QUANDARY
The new date of June 9 (June 10 in Australia) being bandied about for WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn’s rescheduled title defence against mandatory contender Terence Crawford has run into some problems with domestic broadcaster Main Event.
Foxtel’s pay-per-view arm Main Event already has an agreement in place to telecast UFC 225 from Chicago on that date that will feature middleweight champion Robert Whittaker of Australia defending his title against Cuban Yoel Romero.
Team Horn is desperately trying to find another workable date to avoid the scheduling conflict. An Australian broadcast blackout is expected to cost Horn PPV revenue in the range of six figures.
“We can’t show two world title fights at the same time,” said Main Event’s Angus Pitt.
It is believed that the UFC booked the June 10 (Australian time) date many months in advance.
“But there has been instances in the past where an [Australian boxer] has been booked on the same date as a UFC event and they were able to go back and change the date,” continued Pitt.
“So fingers crossed Jeff Horn and his team will be able to do the same.”
The original date for Horn versus Crawford was April 14 but this was scrapped after the 30-year-old from Omaha, Nebraska injured his right hand in sparring.
Horn claimed the WBO title with a 12-round unanimous decision win over Filipino superstar Manny Pacquiao in Brisbane last July. The 30-year-old former schoolteacher successfully defended the title against Brisbane’s Gary Corcoran last December.
Crawford is a two-weight world champion who will be making his welterweight debut against Horn. In his last bout in August he unified his WBC and WBO junior welterweight titles with Julius Indongo’s IBF and WBA straps by third round knockout.
BILAL AKKAWY MIXING IT UP WITH CANELO ALVAREZ IN SPARRING
Hot on the heels of his unanimous decision win over former WBA super middleweight titleholder Giovanni De Carolis, Sydney gunslinger Bilal Akkawy 17-0-1 (14) has been drafted into the training camp of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez 49-1-2 (34).
The Mexican superstar, who was last week temporarily suspended by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) after failing a drug test for clenbuterol, is continuing his training camp while NSAC investigate the issue further ahead of his scheduled May 5 rematch with undisputed middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Nevada.
The 24-year-old Akkawy is widely regarded as one of the biggest punchers pound-for-pound in Australia, something he attributes to his genes.
His father Mick Akkawy was also notoriously heavy-handed, with Hall of Fame trainer Johnny Lewis rating the elder Akkawy as the hardest-hitting boxer pound-for-pound that he has ever worked with in his long and storied career.
While the younger Akkawy’s power is well-known and highly-regarded, he has been working on developing the boxing side of his game as he steps up his level of competition.
“He’s got great power and while he has relied on it too much in some fights, he has really put the work into his boxing skills for this fight,” Lewis told News Corp’s Grantlee Kieza before the De Carolis fight.
The work paid dividends, with Akkawy able to box along when needed against the Italian to win a wide points decision.
The time Akkawy spends in camp with a clever boxer-puncher like Alvarez will only help to continue this part of his fistic education and accelerate his learning curve.
Just don’t eat the Mexican beef.
JOE GOODALL SET TO MAKE HIS PRO DEBUT ON HOGAN-KELLY UNDERCARD
One of Australia’s best performed amateur boxers will be turning pro on the undercard of DDP Sports’ big “Revolution” card headlined by Dennis Hogan versus Jimmy Kilrain Kelly on April 7 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Queensland heavyweight “Big” Joe Goodall, who claimed the bronze medal in the super heavyweight division at the World Amateur Boxing Championships in Hamburg, Germany last year, is trained by decorated coach Glenn Rushton out of the Stretton Boxing Club that produced WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn.
Speaking to News Corp journalist Grantlee Kieza last year, the trainer of champions said that Goodall stood out the moment he walked into the gym – and it wasn’t because of his size.
“Joe was a natural from the very first night in the gym,” Rushton said. “It took Jeff [Horn] a while to really grasp the basics of boxing but I knew Joe would be a star from his first session. He has now proved himself to be one of the best fighters in the world in what is a glamour weight division.”
Like many young Aussie men Goodall dreamed of playing AFL football but an injury put the handbrake on those aspirations.
He switched to boxing in 2009 and hasn’t looked back.
“I took up boxing at 17 after suffering a hip injury playing Aussie rules for the Western Taipans and Glenn taught Jeff and me everything we know about the sport,” Goodall told Kieza.
The 25-year-old from Brisbane became just the fourth Australian boxer to win a medal – all bronze – at the World Amateur Boxing Championships since their inception in 1974. He also won silver at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, losing in the super heavyweight final to highly-touted professional prospect Joe Joyce.
Goodall’s decision to join the punch-for-pay ranks was prompted by narrowly missing out on selection for next month’s Commonwealth Games set to be held on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
On the “Revolution” card he will be up against Lui Te’o 2-7-1 (2), a stoutly-built Kiwi with a decent punch who fought eight times last year. Te’o held the experienced Bob Mirovic to a six round majority draw in his last outing in December with one of the three judges having him up 59-55.
The 6-foot-4, 230-pound Goodall is remarkably mobile for a big man and moves around the ring with the speed and grace of a welterweight. He will be a welcome addition to the professional ranks.
BRUNO VIFUAVIWILI SCORES UPSET OVER BILLEL “BABYFACE” DIB
In an upset Bruno Vifuaviwili 21-1-1 (5) of Tanzania toppled Billel “Babyface” Dib 21-3 (10) to claim the vacant WBA Oceania super featherweight title with a 10 round majority decision win at Seagulls Rugby League Club in Tweeds Heads on Saturday night. Scores were 96-94 twice and 95-95.
The 28-year-old Dib, cousin of former IBF featherweight champion Billy “The Kid” Dib, was originally scheduled to face Matt Remillard 27-1 (15) in the United States who returned to the ring last April after a six year layoff. The fight was nixed when the US Government pulled Dib’s visa.
The reigning Tanzanian super featherweight champion made his bones fighting rank novices and debutants in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. The 22-year-old’s most experienced opponent prior to Dib was Ally Bugingo, 9-8-2 (2) at the time. All of his previous opponents bar two had less than six fights.
The result just reinforces that a hungry fighter is a dangerous fighter, regardless of their resume.
On the same show Reagan Dessaix 13-1 (9) claimed the vacant IBF Pan Pacific light heavyweight title with a TKO4 over Japan’s Shintaro Matsumoto 14-6 (10) in a scheduled 10-round bout.
Dessaix opened up a nasty cut on Matsumoto that forced referee Brad Vocale to call a halt to the fight at 0:39 of the fourth round.
HOSKING PROMOTIONS AND PETER MANIATIS EVENTS JOINS FORCES FOR NEXT MOLONEY TWINS SHOW ON MAY 19
Hosking Promotions have announced they will be working with Peter Maniatis Events for their next show featuring the world-ranked Moloney twins, Andrew and Jason.
“We are excited to announce that we are partnering up with Peter Maniatis Events for the annual “Bob Rose Cup” proudly sponsored by Ultra Tune!” Hosking Promotions said on their Facebook page.
“The big show, pencilled in for Saturday May 19 at the Malvern Town Hall, will be headlined by Jason and Andrew Moloney who will both be defending their WBA Oceania titles.
“On what will be a massive undercard we will also have three Victorian title fights to compliment the two main events as well as some of the best young talent coming up through the ranks!
“A big thank you to Ultra Tune, Gruppo Alessi, BBXWorld and Premix King for their support in making this event possible.”
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