Amir Khan vs Andreas Kotelnik undercard

Everyone is looking forward to the main event tonight between Amir Khan and Andreas Kotelnik, which is taking place at the MEN Arena in Manchester, and UK viewers can watch it live on Sky PPV. I’m expecting a great fight with this one. A lot of people have completely written Kotelnik off because they don’t know much about him, but he took a ‘voluntary’ defence of his title to fight Amir, because he is confident he can win and intends to use this fight as a platform to bigger things. What some people might not know is that he was also an olympic silver medalist, and he travels well. For example, he took the WBA light welterweight title from Gavin Rees in a thrilling fight that ended in a 12th round TKO and has defended it twice since then. I believe that Amir will win the fight tonight, and that the Freddie Roach camp have transformed him as a fighter, but I’m not convinced that Kotelnik is the ‘soft option’ that everyone makes out.

The undercard tonight is also fantastic, and it’s one of those events where I’m excited by nearly every bout. Here is an overvew:

Matthew Hall vs Anthony Small
Enzo Maccarinelli vs Denis Lebedev
Kell Brook vs Michael Lomax
Kevin Mitchell vs Rudy Encarnacion
Paul Smith vs Michal Bilak
Richard Towers vs Howard Daley
James DeGale vs Ciaran Healy
Billy Joe Saunders vs Matt Scriven
Frankie Gavin vs Graham Fearn

Obviously we have been talking a lot about Anthony Small vs Matthew Hall, but tonight also sees Enzo Maccarinelli’s first fight under new trainer Karl Ince after leaving the Calzaghe camp following a shock 9th round KO to Ola Afolabi. He’s taking a hard fight against undefeated Russian fighter Denis Lebedev (17 wins, 12 KOs). There is a fight with Ingle fighter Kell Brook, who many people compare to Prince Naseem (Naseem himself commented that they are both cut from the same cloth) and always proves to be entertaining. Kevin Mitchell (aka the Dagenham destroyer) is one of our favourite UK super featherweight prospects winning a majority of his fights by KO, and we’re looking forward to his return after a number of fights in the US. Paul Smith is a popular fighter from Liverpool who became popular after featuring in the Contender series, and is fighting tonight on the back of 3 good wins. Our boxing gold medalist winner James DeGale is having his 3rd pro fight after winning his last by an impressive KO. There is also going to be a fight with fellow Olympian Frankie Gavin – all in all, a cracking night!

On ITV4 there is also a great night of boxing from York Hall including a brilliant headline match up between the very popular Danny Macintosh and Welsh fighter Nathan Cleverly (billed as the next Joe Calzaghe) which should be a superb fight. I like both fighters very much, but see this going in Cleverly’s favour. The undercard for this fight also sees appearances from Tyson Fury and Jon Thaxton.

Author: admin
Posted in: Boxing Events
Tags: amir khan, andreas kotelnik, undercard fights