Had a tough tough bud of Finnish extraction, Ray Elson, a light heavy who fought Victor Galindez on national TV in '75, but haven't heard of any other Finnish fighters, C. Have any made it to the world stage?...'n how big a sport is boxing in Finland?
Icehockey is our biggest sport. And also other kind of winter sports. And boxing is getting bigger and bigger. Nowdays we have very nice situation in boxing. Everything changed when Amin Asikainen knocked Sebastian Sylvester out to win the European title. It was very big upset and our media showed lot of interesting to boxing after that. Amin is still fighting and he is pretty good fighter but only in European level IMO. And we have also that one big giant called Robert Helenius. I think everybody agrees that he is one of the top heavyweight prospects. And we have a great promoter here Pekka Mäki. He has made amazing job and our P3 promotions is very respected.. Finland wasnt just some neutral place to fight. They also know that we can build up a great evening here. We have great P3 promotions and great arena to fight. And we have lot of talened young guys.. Like Edis Tatli, Niko Jokinen and also Ville Piispanen who is EU-champion and he will defend his title in the same card where's Froch and Abraham will fight. There's something for u if you want to watch: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk4X1YXGiGY[/ame] Edis Tatli, He is great!! Amazingly fast hands.. I think he has everything what you have to got to be great fighter! [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSUYkaayFd0[/ame]
Yes, it is very disappointing. I beleive that Finland is a very beautiful place. I will visit it at one point or another.
Thanks for the vids 'n overview, C. What kind of amateur program do you have there, 'n do you having many hardcore boxing gyms?
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxaN-ilJ-Q"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxaN-ilJ-Q[/ame] But of course we can
Froch is a knob,we all know that,but I think he was just joking.In bad taste granted,but still just joking.
We have team called ''Team London'' which is aiming to the London's Olympics. It is collection of the best fighters we have. Program includes 5 boxers. And we have of course lot of other amateurs but the quality is not the greatest here in Finland. But Finland organizes couple of big tournaments called Tammer tournament and GeeBee tournament. You can really see many top fighters in those tournaments. And in Professional boxing.. We have only one team which you can take seriously. It is that P3 promotions. You have to live in Helsinki (the capital city of finland) if you want to train hard and live your dream to be a champion one day. But I think one good promotion team is enough if it is well managed. And P3 promotions is great and they are doing lot of cooperation with other teams.. Couple of days ago our own boy Niko Jokinen flied to the Germany to spar with Arthur Abraham. And sry for my english. It really sucks sometimes.
No apology necessary, C. Shudder to think what it would be like if I tried to communicate in Finnish.