Kings of the ring serve up feast for fight fans

AT FIRST glance, 2007 was the year that sport was beset by scandal, controversy and pain. Again.

The last 12 months may be best remembered for the drugs, the greed, the illegal gambling and match-fixing allegations, the drugs, the dogfighting, and did I mention the drugs?

Usually, a fair sprinkling of boxing scandal would add to the general stink but many of this year’s sporting highs were delivered by the sport, a dazzling combination of punching prowess, versatility, footwork, ringcraft, heart and all-round drama.

The revitalisation of Irish boxing continued in 2007 with New York-based Derryman John Duddy’s St Patrick’s Day eve victory over Anthony Bonsante cementing his reputation as a rising middleweight prospect that by year’s end had secured him a world title fight next summer against Kelly ‘The Ghost’ Pavlik.

The night that Duddy stopped Bonsante in the ninth round at Madison Square Garden’s Theatre may also go down as the date a great Irish boxing rivalry was born. By the time Duddy stepped into the ring for his 18th pro fight, Limerick middleweight Andy Lee had made his mark on the evening with one of the knockouts of the year.

The then-22-year-old former Olympian, flew in from Detroit, where he is trained and managed by legendary Kronk Gym chief Emanuel Steward, and promptly took his unbeaten record to eight wins with a stunning one-punch, third-round knockout of former world champion Carl Daniels.

In an all-southpaw encounter, Lee shaped his right hand for a jab but instead unleashed a hook that had Daniels unconscious the moment it connected with his temple, sending the American crashing to the canvas like a felled Sherman Oak.

Nine months on and Lee is 14-0 with 11 KOs and the Irish super-middleweight champion, while Duddy is 23-0 (17 KOs) and coming off the best win of his career to date, a unanimous decision victory over Howard Eastman. Rumblings from both Irishmen’s camps indicate there is little love lost between the two and the way they are progressing indicates a Lee-Duddy showdown in the ring will be for high stakes.

In the meantime, Duddy must first stake his claim to a world title and it would be no mean feat if he were to take it at the first attempt from Kelly Pavlik, who would arguably have a strong claim for fighter of the year if it were not for the impressive efforts of Floyd Mayweather Junior.

Pavlik’s defeat of undisputed champion Jermain Taylor in Atlantic City at the end of September was one of those classic middleweight brawls that had everything. The Youngstown, Ohio, boxer had worked his way into world title contention by scoring a remarkable victory over big-punching Colombian Edison Miranda in May. But Pavlik was nearly the victim when Taylor clocked him in the second and had him reeling for the rest of the stanza before the bell saved him.

Amazingly, Pavlik fought his way back from the brink in an absolute barn-burner of a fight at the Boardwalk Hall, where 4,000 fans from Youngstown had made the six-and-a-half hour drive to see their man complete a stunning knockdown in the seventh round, pummelling Taylor into submission as the champion’s reign ended with him sliding forlornly down a cornerpost.

A week earlier in Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and New York City, Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather had begun the war of words that would lead to the year’s

final megafight, a WBC welterweight title showdown in Las Vegas that caught the imagination of fans on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks in large part to the powerful, HBO-produced 24/7 documentary series following the fighters’ preparations.

Mayweather accounted for Oscar De La Hoya in a split decision victory at light-middleweight in May, after which he announced his retirement from boxing. Hatton, though, brought him raging back into the ring with a verbal assault on Mayweather’s boxing prowess after he had managed what the brash American could not, a knockdown victory over Jose Luis Castillo.

Stepping up from light-welterweight, though, was a bridge too far for Hatton, whose brawling, go forward, scrappy style was matched by the normally immaculate Mayweather in an electric atmosphere at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas earlier this month. Mayweather’s decision to turn ugly to combat the Mancunian proved correct as he beat Hatton at his own game, knocking out his rival in the 10th round to the dismay of the vast hordes that followed Hatton to the US and turned the Strip into what felt like a host city at a World Cup finals.

Hatton’s reputation as the world’s best light welterweight, thankfully, remains intact and good sense should see him stay at that 140lb limit despite all the talk of a rematch.

Mayweather possesses such a rich array of boxing attributes — masterly defence, sublime footwork, brilliant economy and superlative ringcraft, in short the priceless ability to avoid getting hurt while dishing it out in spades — that he rightly finished the year as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world.

Sometimes, though, we equate great boxing talent with just those finer points of the sweet science and often forget that the trading of blows can be not just entertaining but also require a great deal of talent as well as heart and stamina.

Miguel Cotto and ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley elevated toe-to-toe combat to an art -form at Madison Square Garden in November as they went at it for 12 rounds of the most skilful slugging any boxing fan would wish to see.

Mosley provoked the classy operator inside his Puerto Rican rival. The two traded round after round in a spectacular show that saw neither fighter able to truly take the fight by the scruff of the neck and get on top.

It was a privilege to witness as Mosley summoned the best in the still unbeaten WBA welterweight champion, who emerged as the unanimous points victor. Now one can only wonder at the spectacle a Cotto-Mayweather collision would produce in 2008.