Nicky exceeded ALL expectations.His done extremely well for a kid who we in school thought was going nowhere with boxing. His won all domestic titles and had a titl at a world title. AA meanwhile has had ALOT of smoke blown up his ass since he turned pro.
WBO level is higher than EBU, unless it's gift wrapped WBO flavour followed by Bogus defences. As it is in this case. Superfeatherweight European title level is very weak. Cooke lost at WBO featherweight level. Abit to a very good opponent. Arthur lost to Michael Gomez. Shocking. Who in the top 10 world level have either of these fighters beat? Thats all I need to know. This is the definitive TIDAL. A loser fighting for a title in a higher weight division. Someone who got knocked out, then gifted a vacant title. Best of all, it's playing second fiddle to Khan's first pro loss. Go on buy the fight! :good
European level at the weight may be weak, but when you say he is fringe European class I take it to assume(and I guess must others would too) that you are talking about European level for the weight class he is in and not he's fringe European level......if he were a Middleweight to equal talent to which he is at Super-Featherweight. The loss to Gomez was 5 years ago, he was a lot more inexperienced and he was a lot more flawed back then. Gomez was a very dangerous fighter back then and stopped both Leva Kirakosyan and Justin Juuko in fights shortly after beating Arthur. He was a hell of a lot better than the fighter who gave Khan hell a few months ago. To hold that loss against Arthur now would be like holding Barrera's losses to Junior Jones against him. Neither of them has beaten a top 10 fighter, well Arthur has beaten one(Gulyakevich) if you are going by boxrecs weak rankings. There are plenty of fighters at Super-Featherweight with quite bare looking records. Valero has only beaten one top 10 fighter and Juarez never has beaten anyone that was top 10 at the time. This is a good competitive fight for both fighters, Cook is seen as a top 10 fighter at Featherweight and Arthur at Super-Featherweight so I suppose they are fixing that problem now and it's a step in the right direction for both. Yes it's for a paper title, but the title is of no less value than Enzo Maccarinelli's was. It should be the main event, Khan's fight won't result in a loss for hhim. Prescott doesn't seem to be up to much and I sure as hell won't be buying this. Actually come to think of it Koba Gogoladze may have been ranked in the top 10 by some when he fought Arthur. He would of been top 15-20 anyway.
what are you talking about Beeston? you are so blinded by your hatred of WBO ok fair enough they are the least title of the big 4 but how can you say they below european level look at all the world class fighters who have held a WBO title since they were established Marco Antonio Barrera Naseem Hamed Enzo Maccarenelli David Haye Johnny Nelson The German who ducked Roy Jones at light heavyweight Wladmir Klitshko Joe Calzaghe Chris Eubank Gerald McClellan Oscar De La Hoya
theres an article on FWs site in which arthur insists there was no need to beat guzman to become the real wbo champ as he beat koba who was no 1 challenger to Guzmans title (truth or an AAAism?) its pretty clear that if AAA beats cook he will then be matched with 1 or 2 poor opponents before getting paired up with mitchell. i doubt he'll have to face anyone world class until he approaches the end of his career.
Roy never ducked him he cleaned out the light heavyweights that pole german did not want to know wanted Jones to come to germany to fight when Jones was the undisputed champion and all that pole german had was a WBO title
The WBO title wasn't the issue - it was the fact that the No. 1 fighter in the division (Jones) wanted nothing of the No. 2 fighter in the division (Michalzewski). Now whether that feeling was mutual I have no idea, though you may be correct in this instance :good
Thats because Jones didnt want to travel abroad to get jobbed. Cant blame him when Germany is the country of the "home town decision". Either way Jones was the draw and clearly the better of the two.
TBF, I don't think either of these guys wanted anything to do with the other, or at least were not prepared to negotiate as regards terms. We have to factor in that Jones' "undisputed champion" status comprised two belts which were stripped from Michalwhashisface and one which was stripped from Graciano Rocchi who the pole later stopped. Anyway, back to the matter at hand, this is basically a glorified European title fight even bearing in mind that a lot of the top boxers in the division are set to jump ship to lightweight. I myself think Arthur should have enough, never been particularly impressed with Cook, however, the big boys in the division (Soto, Barrios, Guzman, Marquez, Juarez, Guerrero) are a whole different ball game. Unfortunately, I kind of doubt we'll ever get the chance to find out.
Spot on, Arsehole Arthur is hardly real world class and got that WBO title gifted to him. Guzman would have ***** slapped him stupid.
Good discussion going on I see. I really hope Arthur has enough to win this weekend, but it will have to be an entirely different performance from that against Foster Jnr. If he comfortably makes the weight, I think Arthur will win by mid round stoppage. If Cook is troubled so badly by bodyshots, I see Arthur giving him hell as thats his biggest weapon in any fight. More generally, I actually feel a bit for Arthur, as I've said for a long time now, I think Warren is setting him up (well trying to) to be a scalp for Mitchell (as I think Warren thinks there is more milage in him).
Thats probably the plan.... but this should be for British or Commonwealth or even European titles not a WBO world title. These type of things devalue the WBO in many peoples eyes.