BoxRec

Is Barry McGuigan not a promoter?

If so, surely this takes away from anything he has got to say whilst being a pundit on a live Sky TV broadcast. I'm not saying what Barry had/has to say isn't worth listening to due to his vast knowledge of the sport, but I would be hard pushed to ever think that messuers Maloney, Warren, Hearn or Hennessy would ever be invited to give their opinions live on someone elses show.

Haye, Hatton, Gary Mason, Eubank, Calzaghe, Audley Harrison etc all are or have been promoters and nobody has objected to them being pundits. McGuigan has been a pundit for two decades - far, far longer than he's been a promoter, and even then he's a relatively small-time promoter.

Maloney used to be quite a regular on Sky and Setanta.

When is Darke's contract with Sky coming to an end - it was a nice surprise to see him commentating on the Prizefighter.... No Jim Watt though anywhere which wasn't so good.

Barry is a knowledgeable guy and I like listening to him, always have. However, have to agree with Samual Brook in that if he is now carving himself out as a Promoter and with Setanta in Ireland and is also closely linked to Barry Hearn too, then this was a silly decision by Sky to have him as a pundit. At some point he may have to be objective when it might not be in his own interests to be and there is when it will fall apart.

What happened to Duke McKenzie? Always a superb pundit and a great judge.

'Kookaburra' McGuigan has been on ITV, Setanta, BBC and Sky in the past and I am surprised to see him back on Sky when they could, and should, have grabbed Jim Rosenthal from ITV who would make a great frontman for their boxing programmes. Sky have loads of mixed and very good pundits, particularly Johnny Nelson who is superb and the others. As a presenter, Dave Clark is okay and Adam Smith is fast developing and will be around for years to come I feel but surely a place for Jim Rosenthal who is a great anchorman and is superb at presenting anything can be found and the young talent ban only benefit from his being. Sky have such a varied catologue of Sport that any ecsion to get Jim Rosenthal on board should have been a no brainer.

Maybe McGuigan should decide what he wants to be before commiting himself to any further pundit duties as he will at some point leave himself open to flak.

On another subject and of a bigger concern to me was the poor, oh so poor, quality of the latest prizefighter offering. clearly each show is diminishing as the contestants are slowly being used up at Heavyweight and it is already a crap divsion when the top guys are taken out of the equation. Rmemebrr Cedric Kushner's US Heavyweight Explosion shows. He all but liquidated the US heavyweight scene by exp[ensing all the journeymen and up and coming talent and look how many decent Heavyweight Yanks there are now.

Some of Saturdays' line up was very poor novices and even those with more experience were in shocking condition like McBride for instance (McGugan was hard pressed to say it, but should have, that he was in poor nick and looked awful enven by his poor standards of fitness, both being fMcBride was inactive and in awful nick but being from Clones, I suppose, stopped Barry from stating the obvious). The Boxing Board surely need to monitor this before someone gets hurt in some of these potential mismatches.

Sprott was bound to win, he was streets above the others in fitness, sharpness and overall experience. I wonder how that Board would have viewed a proposal for Sprott against an inactive four fight novice on a normal format show? Skelton was fighting on memory, the second tier were lacking experience and the novices should never have been allowed in to potentially face much bigger and better guys.The whole thing has danger stamped all over it and fighters should be made to meet the very basic criteria beofre being allowed to enter PF, that being fit, active, at a decent fighting weight and dare I say it regulars at a Gym and not just to prepare for a quick earner in prizefighter.

Barry McGuigan took out UK citizenship to win the British featherweight title in 1983 but he lamented his decision in his controversial autobiography The Untold Story and a man he now advises, Willie "Big Bang" Casey, goes from Prizefighter to a shot at the European super-bantamweight title against Spain’s dangerous and vastly more experienced Kiko Martinez in Limerick on November 6.
Casey hails from Limerick in the Irish Republic (often known as "Stab City"), so the sharp-hitting, superfit challenger cannot fight for the British title, anyway, but to go for the European title after just 10 fights (all wins) constitutes a major gamble on his and McGuigan’s part.
Yes, Casey will enjoy all the advantages of home, including huge support and, yes, he can undoubtedly go a bit; however, he only turned pro two years ago and has never done more than eight rounds going into his first 12-rounder. The world-ranked Martinez, by comparison, has done the full championship limit five times and is well-used to Irish rings, winning all four of his previous fights on the Emerald Isle, including a memorable 86-second destruction of Bernard "Ben" Dunne in front of huge pro-Dunne support in Dublin in 2007 to first lift the major European belt.
Martinez lost the belt a year later to Rendall Munroe (his first loss, amateur or pro) but kept plugging away and, despite a second loss to Munroe, won the belt back last month in Dublin with a clear decision over durable Armenian Arsen Martirosyan, who is ranked in the top 15 by the WBC. Bizarrely, Martinez is four years younger than Casey at 24; he is hardly your fading Jose "Mantequilla" Napoles.
Casey, with a wife and kids to feed from a young age, concentrated on a career in welding before he saw boxing as his future, and the traveller made his way to the York Hall earlier this year as a late replacement for the injured Waye McCullough in Prizefighter and sprung a real surprise to win the event with three impressive wins, one of them a third-round stoppage of Liverpool’s former British title challenger Mark Moran, who had stopped Martin Lindsay in the amateurs. Subsequently, Casey got in a good warm-up for this crack with an eight-round decision over a seasoned Italian in August.
You know, Martinez did seem at a loss how to handle southpaw Munroe in their two meetings, and Casey is a dedicated, determined southpaw very much in the Munroe mould. If McGuigan is stepping him up at this time, a man who knew exactly what he wanted as a fighter, McGuigan must really feel that Casey is ready. I do, too. Casey has a winner’s mentality, a McGuigan mentality, and the roar of the crowd and non-stop pressure will result in a magnificent, if bruising, victory for the home man.

my mother and her sisters and brother were born in Limerick!! I might go to this show, and see some roots!!

Samuel Brooks wrote:Is Barry McGuigan not a promoter?

If so, surely this takes away from anything he has got to say whilst being a pundit on a live Sky TV broadcast. I'm not saying what Barry had/has to say isn't worth listening to due to his vast knowledge of the sport, but I would be hard pushed to ever think that messuers Maloney, Warren, Hearn or Hennessy would ever be invited to give their opinions live on someone elses show.

How's the weather in Hertfordshire? Not too bad up here.

boxingchat wrote:Barry is a knowledgeable guy and I like listening to him, always have. However, have to agree with Samual Brook in that if he is now carving himself out as a Promoter and with Setanta in Ireland and is also closely linked to Barry Hearn too, then this was a silly decision by Sky to have him as a pundit. At some point he may have to be objective when it might not be in his own interests to be and there is when it will fall apart.

What happened to Duke McKenzie? Always a superb pundit and a great judge.

'Kookaburra' McGuigan has been on ITV, Setanta, BBC and Sky in the past and I am surprised to see him back on Sky when they could, and should, have grabbed Jim Rosenthal from ITV who would make a great frontman for their boxing programmes. Sky have loads of mixed and very good pundits, particularly Johnny Nelson who is superb and the others. As a presenter, Dave Clark is okay and Adam Smith is fast developing and will be around for years to come I feel but surely a place for Jim Rosenthal who is a great anchorman and is superb at presenting anything can be found and the young talent ban only benefit from his being. Sky have such a varied catologue of Sport that any ecsion to get Jim Rosenthal on board should have been a no brainer.

Maybe McGuigan should decide what he wants to be before commiting himself to any further pundit duties as he will at some point leave himself open to flak.

On another subject and of a bigger concern to me was the poor, oh so poor, quality of the latest prizefighter offering. clearly each show is diminishing as the contestants are slowly being used up at Heavyweight and it is already a crap divsion when the top guys are taken out of the equation. Rmemebrr Cedric Kushner's US Heavyweight Explosion shows. He all but liquidated the US heavyweight scene by exp[ensing all the journeymen and up and coming talent and look how many decent Heavyweight Yanks there are now.

Some of Saturdays' line up was very poor novices and even those with more experience were in shocking condition like McBride for instance (McGugan was hard pressed to say it, but should have, that he was in poor nick and looked awful enven by his poor standards of fitness, both being fMcBride was inactive and in awful nick but being from Clones, I suppose, stopped Barry from stating the obvious). The Boxing Board surely need to monitor this before someone gets hurt in some of these potential mismatches.

Sprott was bound to win, he was streets above the others in fitness, sharpness and overall experience. I wonder how that Board would have viewed a proposal for Sprott against an inactive four fight novice on a normal format show? Skelton was fighting on memory, the second tier were lacking experience and the novices should never have been allowed in to potentially face much bigger and better guys.The whole thing has danger stamped all over it and fighters should be made to meet the very basic criteria beofre being allowed to enter PF, that being fit, active, at a decent fighting weight and dare I say it regulars at a Gym and not just to prepare for a quick earner in prizefighter.

Re. McGuigan, I will repeat my first reply to this, that plenty of other boxers who also are or have been promoters have also done punditty on TV, and it was never an issue for them. I know what you're saying in principle, but why raise the point for Barry and not others? Especially as Barry is not an especially influential promoter.

To Prizefighter, McCrory did bring up McBride's conditioning. As for McGuigan's assessment, the immediate reaction is to think he was siding with the man for geographical reasons, but on the other hand if he really believed what he was saying, why should he bend the other way to prove he isn't biased? After all, he hardly said anything outrageously against the grain. McBride-Egobi could have gone either way, and McBride absolutely was unlucky against Skelton. I don't think anybody can dispute that - mathematically, the absolute worst he could have done was a draw.

MachoMan09 wrote:It would be of interest to know whether Messrs. Brooks & Chat, who appear so vehemently opposed to Barry McGuigan partaking in journalistic punditry in one form of media, share similar reservations about another promoter who offers journalistic opinion (otherwise known as punditry) in a different media - albeit owned by the same company and targetting the same demographic as the outlet McGuigan featured on this past weekend.

Beat me to it! If it's disingenious for what is essentially a small-time promoter who has no big names to comment on shows which don't feature his boxers or their rivals, what is it for the country's biggest promoter to offer "opinion", often on boxers from rival organisations?

boxingchat wrote:However, have to agree with Samual Brook... I feel but surely a place for Jim Rosenthal who is a great anchorman and is superb at presenting anything can be found and the young talent ban only benefit from his being. Sky have such a varied catologue of Sport that any ecsion to get Jim Rosenthal on board should have been a no brainer.

Firstly, of course you would agree with Samuel Brooks. You're both associated with Al Legedly.

And (as much as I like Jim Rosenthal as a broadcaster) - just answer me this. Is this the same Jim Rosenthal who was poisoned along with Al Legedly at the Fat Duck restaurant on February 17, 2009 whilst out celebrating Mrs R's birthday?

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:

boxingchat wrote:However, have to agree with Samual Brook... I feel but surely a place for Jim Rosenthal who is a great anchorman and is superb at presenting anything can be found and the young talent ban only benefit from his being. Sky have such a varied catologue of Sport that any ecsion to get Jim Rosenthal on board should have been a no brainer.

Firstly, of course you would agree with Samuel Brooks. You're both associated with Al Legedly.

And (as much as I like Jim Rosenthal as a broadcaster) - just answer me this. Is this the same Jim Rosenthal who was poisoned along with Al Legedly at the Fat Duck restaurant on February 17, 2009 whilst out celebrating Mrs R's birthday?

Ha, good point, well presented. Jim is trying to get more cash out of them apparently. The Fat Duck, not ITV.

And just to confirm, Duke McKenzie is a feckin awful commentator, Dave Clarke is a complete waste of space ( can you not see, the man has ZERO interest in boxing ) and Johnny Nelson is a master of the bleedin obvious.

This is harsh. Jim has been left with no choice but to take further action after the arrogant chef who blew it simply refuses to accept that he blew it. Jim is not a vindictive man; however, he is a fair man and he has not been treated fairly.

Boxing Chat and Samuel Brooks - it is guys like you with agendas that give boxing forums a bad name - blatantly you are both posting per your own agendas and therefore you are not be be taken seriously.

McGuigan is one of the best pundits in the business and I was delighted to see him back on the Sky panel. Sky are obviously beginning to listen to the punters who have been screaming out for some changes to the sky setup.

bennie wrote:This is harsh. Jim has been left with no choice but to take further action after the arrogant chef who blew it simply refuses to accept that he blew it. Jim is not a vindictive man; however, he is a fair man and he has not been treated fairly.

Nobody is saying anything different about this. I wish him the best of luck - and I like him as a broadcaster.

MachoMan09 wrote:It would be of interest to know whether Messrs. Brooks & Chat, who appear so vehemently opposed to Barry McGuigan partaking in journalistic punditry in one form of media, share similar reservations about another promoter who offers journalistic opinion (otherwise known as punditry) in a different media - albeit owned by the same company and targetting the same demographic as the outlet McGuigan featured on this past weekend.

I was just thinking exactly the same thing. Whats the panic about McGuigan been on the panel he's an excellent addition?

Maybe boxingchat feels he should replace McGuigan seeming as he constantly gives unbiased opinions on here and always demonstrates such profesionalism. A picture of objectiveness D

Samuel Brooks wrote:Is Barry McGuigan not a promoter?

If so, surely this takes away from anything he has got to say whilst being a pundit on a live Sky TV broadcast. I'm not saying what Barry had/has to say isn't worth listening to due to his vast knowledge of the sport, but I would be hard pushed to ever think that messuers Maloney, Warren, Hearn or Hennessy would ever be invited to give their opinions live on someone elses show.

is he doing saturday fight night?surely hs to be better than jim cock and johnny nelson ?