Andy Kerr, a present for ITV4 boxing (previously a co-presenter on Bunce’s Boxing Hour on Setanta) had Twittered earlier today that he fought this fight could be the fight of the weekend. We had disagreed saying that the fight between Anthony Small and Matthew Hall had the potential to be the big fight, but we think we may have been wrong! Danny Macintosh is another fighter from the famed Ingle gym, 29 years old and started his pro career late having only had 11 fights. He has proved to be an exciting and popular fighter, and always turns up in super shape thanks to hard training and clean living.
Nathan Cleverly has been billed as the next Joe Calzaghe, which is high praise indeed, but at only 22 years old and with 16 pro wins and a light heavyweight common wealth title holder (which he had defended 3 times) he obviously has talent! The action started immediately, with both fighters landing blows but with Nathan landing the cleaner shots. Macintosh (aka Big Mac) seemed like he might be the stronger of the two fighters, but was unable to land the big shots. Cleverly knocked Macintosh down twice, but both times Macintosh got to his feet with clear eyes and a smile on his face, and looked more annoyed at having been caught. In order to show to everyone that he wasn’t hurt, he got to his feet a second time with a hand spring from the canvas much to the entertainment of the fans. The following round started badly for Macintosh as he went to his knees again after another headshot, however he again recovered quickly and seemed unhurt from the shots. It then looked like he was starting to make progress as he landed some shots, and Cleverly might have punched himself out in the earlier offensive.
However, the fight ended in the 7th round when Macintosh went down again from a heavy right hand and got back to his feet sluggishly. A final attack from Cleverly left the referee with no option but to stop the fight, ending it with a TKO. The future looks very bright for Cleverly, and Macintosh, who was magnanimous in defeat gave high praise to his opponent, marking him as a potential future world champion with bags of talent that he had no shame in losing to.
The undercard of this fight included a tough 8 round fight between Jon Thaxton and the popular brickie Tom Glover, which went to the favour of Glover! Thaxton seemed to tire quickly in the fight and his punch power seemed less effective in the higher weight division. Although Glover’s style was perhaps one dimensional, he seemed powerful and full of energy right to the end, and consistently landed some good shots to Thaxton’s head. Although Thaxton lost the fight, the general consensus seemed to be that the fight between Thaxton and John Murray would still be on which will please a lot of British fight fans.
Tyson Fury was also on the undercard against a large Latvian fighter called Aleksandrs Selezens, who has previously never been stopped and could have been a good chance for Tyson to get some more pro rounds under his belt in preparation for his fight against McDermott. Tyson looked to be carrying some extra weight around his mid section (which he put down to not being able to train properly because of a back injury which forced him to pull out of his last fight) and didn’t have the same zip in his punches as he last performances. Even so, he made short work of the Latvian fighter and was the first fighter to stop him. Once again he has been relatively untested and is lacking the experience of going into longer rounds that he will need in preparation for a title fight. Nonetheless, he still called out the likes of Sexton and Chisora in his post fight interview! Tyson may have to travel back to Eastern Europe in order to get the decent sparring partners he needs to prepare for the big fights.
