By Niall Doran
Another great weekend of boxing has come and gone. Starting in Liverpool on Friday night David Price stopped Matt Skelton in more convincing fashion than anyone ever had before. He absolutely demolished Skelton inside 2 rounds with devastating power and finished him off with a hurtful looking body shot. The only telling blows Skelton really landed were with his head. Supposedly Price is being lined up to fight Tony Thompson sometime early next year which would be good preparation for a potential clash with Tyson Fury or even a world title shot.
In Belfast last night Tyson Fury did what he had to do against the American veteran Kevin Johnson by winning a comfortable unanimous decision over 12 rounds. Johnson never really troubled Tyson in what was in truth a poor enough fight to watch. Credit to Fury though for sticking to a game plan for the entire fight that clearly was needed when fighting a world class slippery opponent in Johnson. It is debatable whether or not Fury will now get a shot at WBC champion Vitali Klitschko. From my understanding it will be up to Klitschko to retire for Fury to get a shot at the winner of Arreola vs Bermane Stiverne in January to set up a potential clash for Vitali’s vacated title (should he choose to retire depending on the outcome of his political elections in Ukraine). The fight everyone wants to see is Fury vs Price which I think would be an excellent contest before either of the two go for the world title.
In New York there was a major upset with Austin Trout winning a unanimous decision to retain his WBA Light Middleweight crown by defeating Puerto Rico’s boxing hero Miguel Cotto. Going into the fight I did mention how under rated Trout was but I just though Miguel’s experience would carry him through to a decision in front of his beloved fans at Madison Square Garden. How wrong I was. Austin Trout boxed beautifully all night and certainly deserved the decision but perhaps not as lob sided as the scorecards may have suggested. Trout now could go on to possibly fight Canelo Alvarez in a unification fight next year. For Cotto I’m not sure where he’ll go from here, maybe he’ll retire I’m not too sure. But at 32 he still has plenty left in the tank and I for one would love to see him fight again.
