Nikolay Valuev 315.4 vs Ruslan Chagaev 225.5 (WBA heavyweight championship) Lamon Brewster 233.6 vs Juho Haapoja 231.4 Kali Meehan 229.9 vs Cerrone Fox 215.1 Giuseppe Lauri 139.7 vs Juho Tolppola 139.3 Leonard Bundu 146.6 vs Frank Shabani 146.1 Cecilia Braekhus 143.7 vs Amy Yuratovac 145.9 Denis Shafikov 144.1 kg vs John Cotterill 144.1 Robert Helenius 251.9 vs Scott Gammer 246 Jarno Rosberg 228.3 vs Viktor Szalai 202.8 Niko Jokinen 167.5 vs Istvan Petroczki 169.3 Venue: Hartwall Arena, Helsinki, Finland Promoter: Sauerland Event TV: ARD (Germany) This is an undercard with little meaning. Pitting Brewster against Meehan immediately gives it some meaning. Fights need to mean something.
If they fought each other it would be better and let the 2 fins have a dust up as well. Would be more entertaining.
Agreed, there's far too many one-sided bouts out there which just pad events out instead of separating the wheat from the chaff.:deal
Frank Maloney said in his book that it takes as much time to look after a bad boxer as it does a good one, so you may as well find out which ones are which. Shame he doesn't practice what he preaches!
Good point well made. No reason why these two shouldn't have been matched, and even then one of them should have stepped up to the plate and saved the show. It's not as if Valuev is prime Tyson, he's not an intimidating figure even if you hadn't prepared for 12 rounds. It should be seen as a great opportunity.
I prefer a smaller number of more meaningful contests. I attended both Munroe and Moore fights at Barnsley and Wigan..... the undercards were largely dreadful. Four rounders are my pet hate anyway, but there weren't even any good fights, KO's or journeymen trying to score an upset. Too content to collect a small paycheck and turn up same time next week.
Boxing has some really poor match makers. Match makers today think they are good if they can get the boy a title shot with a no risk route. So what if Brewster isn't the champ anymore. He is a nobody out of his own doing. As is Rahman and many others. Get in the ring and make fights we care about. Plus everyone needs to have a no tolerance policy to fighters who aren't training hard. We pay to see guys perform, they cannot do that if they are not in shape. Would you like to pay a plumber who doesn't come prepared with the right tools and decides to use a knife as a screwdriver and do a slap dash job?!
