Nah I think you're wrong there. Warren fed Murray to Mitchell! As soon as Murray signed with Warren he was straight in with Mitchell. Murray was ranked high with the governing bodies at the time , he was ranked number 1 with the WBC at the time and that was about to be vacated he should've waited.. Mitchell was close with Warren, he's a fellow Londoner and Warren had him since the start when he was a kid. I think he signed Murray so Mitchell could take his high rankings. Warren never seemed to care about Murray at all. Murray should have been patient after Hennessy lost his ITV deal, and waited for his incoming WBC shot (would have been a winnable foght against DeMarco). The Tris Dixon boxing stories podcast episode with Murray is very interesting regarding all this. Murray was skint or in debt almost all his career he said he had to go where the money was. Joe Gallagher didn't want him to take the Mitchell fight he said he should wait for the WBC shot. Murray was on bad terms with Gallagher and went out on the **** in Germany (at the Sturm-Macklin fight) just a couple of weeks before the fight with Mitchell. They both didn't live the life tbh. But it's still unbelievable that not one of them picked up a world title, or made much money from the sport. That war they had definitely put miles on the clock for both their careers.
Yeah. Mitchell was close with Warren, but Khan was far more important to him. Khan was a manufactured product, who had everything on a plate.Khans fame and backing bizzarely had him headlining shows in mismatches above world champions like Maccirinelli. Warren carefully selected every opponent for him( apart from Prescott lol!!) They usually had very low KO ratios and were moving up in weight, and got him fights and shots he didn't deserve, and deliberately made him skip domestic and European level ( Thaxton, Murray, Romanov, Mitchell) avoiding tough fights and potential losses there, and deliberately skipped world level at lightweight ( Katsidis/Marquez, Juan Diaz/ Nate Campbell) as it was too good at the time,and moved him up to the far weaker 140 division were weak champs like Gavin Rees and Souleymayne M'baye were playing pass the parcel with belts. Whereas Mitchell had to fight Johanesson/Katsidis/Murray. An interesting thing I just remembered though. Mitchell was ranked very high with the WBO when Nicky Cook was champ. And Mitchell refused to fight him as he was friends with him and he was trained by his Dad. He should have took that fight regardless, just like Jacobs and Derevyanchenko took the fight with each other.
Just watched the first vid, wow! Another reason to love Gomez. Obviously I'm not Australian, but I do love their fights. You ever see Fenech vs Marcos Villasana or Norris vs Troy Waters?
Yeah, Khan was definitely guided around the substantial, dues-paying part of the British/Euro scene. If Warren had known that Prescott was an authentic threat, Amir wouldn't have been in there; Rubio had convinced Frank that it was a safe assignment, that Prescott's KO ratio was purely a matter of his being matched with abject ham and eggers and Colombian domestics down in S. America. Kevin was a much better pure boxer than Amir, you saw it in the way he handled Prescott (granted, he did have more warning of the Colombian's punching threat). Had he ever rematched Prescott, Khan probably would've gotten the job done, but it would have been a restrained pattern job, not the intelligent clinic Kevin put on. Thing is, though a guy like Ingemar had provided a solid learning fight and a stern gut check, I always thought it was slack of Warren to allow Kev to go from a year out with injury (working on the Underground) to Katsidis within the space of 12 months of his return, with only the Prescott bout to bridge the considerable step up. Mick was relentless, had given Casamayor all he could handle and had experience with other world campaigners, was on the cusp of challenging Marquez for a second tilt at the division's true crown (and he ended up giving an ATG in Juan a good go, too). Aside from spending too much time on the party scene, Mitchell wasn't seasoned enough to beat Mick, was thrown in at the deep end without due swarmer/pressure experience. Prescott had been more of a boxer puncher who did his thing in ring center. Yeah, I agree that he was throwing Kevin under the bus. He never really cared enough for the talent he had on his hands with Mitchell to begin with, had written him off by the time of the Murray fight. I loved the odds for that fight, printing money. John was a good boy, but he was never in Kevin's class. I was a big fan of the Eastender. His failure to properly realize his potential is largely his own fault, of course, but Warren certainly contributed. This is one of my primary issues with Hearn. putting 90,000 in Wembley is great and all, but the bread and butter is being neglected. We need meaty domestic fare on TV again. Yep. And Johnny Famechon is one of my all-time favs, if you count him as an Aussie (we count Zoo and Vic et al, after all). No Carbajal-Gonzalez I on your list?
Seen it, really good fight. A tad overrated though. I liked the momentum shifts, but I prefer action and that fight was more of a boxing match with KDs than a bloodcurdling war imo. I haven't actually made my top 100 yet. I'm just watching fights as data for it now.
I remember Frank looking a bit deflated after that Mitchell-Murray fight, seemed to spend more time commiserating with the Murray camp than congratulating Kevin; This content is protected I reckon he'd been hoping John might emerge as a new Hatton for him. Domestic donnybrooks are always a good way to build your guy. After the way Kevin had folded against Mick Katsidis, on top of the discipline issues, I reckon he thought Kevin was a lost cause and was banking on John's aggression being too much for him.
I haven't forgotten it. Wee Bobby bounced McAuley all over the place. Decked him 5 times but gassed and got stopped in the 10th. A really vicious war. Bobby went through his whole career, believe or not aa a heroin addict. This defeat sent him right off the deep end. In the mid 2000's he got himself straight and was giving talks on the dangers of addiction, training amateur Boxers and even got a degree. Sadly, Bobby died of cancer in 2015.
Sorry to hear that. For all his struggles, at least he and his family can be proud of the night he gave a future very decent world title holder ten rounds of hell.
