BoxRec

Lets face it Stevo was above his level capturing the euro belt..no one expected him to do it so its no great surprise to hear he has been relieved of it.

Still was euro champ for a while though and thats some achievement.

petr wrote:why fight if your so badly weight drained?

Dioufy wrote:if he feels that something wasn't right then he shouldn't have fought - If he was ill, then pulling out is a no-brainer, IMO.

Fair points there.

I watched the post fight interview with Foster and with some of the things that he said, I got the impression that he was put under pressure to go through with the fight, but of course he wouldn't say any such thing with Ricky Hatton alongside him.

He was saying stuff like:
"I would like to thank Hatton Promotions for their support"...
"I just had to go through with it, everyone was counting on me to put on a good show"...
"I wanted to put up a good fight, there are a lot of people who have come here to watch me"...
"There was a lot of money at stake here tonight"...

I don't know Foster personally, so just don't know if that is his attitude and the way he prefers to look at things. But that is the impression I got.

However, despite all that. I think Foster was wrong to bring up this apparent "virus". I'm not saying that he had a virus or he didn't, that's not for me to say, because I just don't know.

But I do think that with him mentioning it at the time that he did, he came across as a bad loser and looking for an excuse to cling to.
And that's not very classy.

As for the fight, it was an odd fight. In the 4th and 5th rounds, Foster looked to be far more heavy-handed than his opponent. Then, in the next 3 rounds he looked totally spent.

And all the knockdowns were startling, it gave the impression that the Belgian was aheavy hitter, which he clearly isn't.

Nevetheless, I was glad to thee the judges scoring the fight to the challenger. The bewst man won on the night.

But I can't see the new European Champion holding his title for any significant length of time, because he is by no means an exceptional fighter.

Autobarn wrote:maybe he gets a rematch and if all goes well, it can be written off as a michael gomez v laszlo bognar type of fight. gomez was ill that night, i recall, losing to the hungarian but winning a tough rematch. let's see a rematch and see what foster is made of.

Fegatilli seemed happy to come back here to fight our other European rated fighters, so I think there is a good possibility a rematch could happen.

If there was pressure put on Foster to take this fight when he wasn't 100%, then maybe he was given assurance that he would be guided towards a rematch for the European or other significant titles if he lost.

I'm not sure if he'll get a straight shot I see Buckland getting a shot and maybe he would get the winner

alexpaterson wrote:I'm not sure if he'll get a straight shot I see Buckland getting a shot and maybe he would get the winner

What Foster needs is another fight quickly... Preferably an easy fight which would probably be a KO win fro him. He will need his confidence back.

I can't see him getting into the ring with Sykes, Buckland or Johannesen next. Definitely not.

And lets be realistic about this, Foster might not win another title.