BoxRec

Published verbatim on Boxing Scene.

Promotion of the Year
"I'm entering my 35th year in this business and, in terms of VFM, atmosphere, quality and competitive action, my last ExCeL bash was right up there with the best shows I've ever delivered. Life in the old dog yet!"

The reality is that apart from the Saunders/Eubank fight, It was an absolute shower of shyte (and piss) from start to finish.

I wonder what's actually happened regarding the proposed 'investigations' about ticket duplication, lack of security etc? f**k all I 'spose.

Why on earth do these sites publish this promotional drivel? Surely they'd get more clicks if they just put a nice pair of norks up or something. It would be a lot less offensive.

A lot of the fights didnt turn out as good as hoped but no doubt it was a cracking card,one of the best in recent times,nobody but the fighters can be accountable for the bouts not catching fire,as much as everyone hates Wazza,he done a great job that night,for one reason or another the fights never really lived up to expectations

The Eubank bout was a stroke of genius and had the country talking, despite been on little bocksnation. I think Frank delivered.

As a promoter, he delivered. He lined up some cracking fights that had us excited before the event. That they did not catch fire was not his fault and is totally the responsibility of the fighters involved.

The timings of the fights was a mistake on his part though

tobyh5 wrote:As a promoter, he delivered. He lined up some cracking fights that had us excited before the event. That they did not catch fire was not his fault and is totally the responsibility of the fighters involved.

The timings of the fights was a mistake on his part though

And to be fair to him it does seem like they're trying to rectify the things that went wrong, the next show is at the O2, which should help sort the security/toilet issues, they aren't using eventim as the ticket provider and he has promised that Fury will be in the ring no later than 11:30.

handsofstone wrote:A lot of the fights didnt turn out as good as hoped but no doubt it was a cracking card,one of the best in recent times,nobody but the fighters can be accountable for the bouts not catching fire,as much as everyone hates Wazza,he done a great job that night,for one reason or another the fights never really lived up to expectations

I have to disagree with you.

Eubank v Saunders was really the only decent fight worthy of any attention.

Fury v Chisora was hardly spectacular the first time around and im not sure there was any demand for a rematch.

Warren is ultimately responsible for the scheduling of the fights and Eubank v Saunders and Fury v Chisora were on far too late and after too many mediocre fights, that really didnt evoke much excitement before they took place.

And lets not get started on the ticketing issues or the lack of security...

liamlion wrote:

handsofstone wrote:A lot of the fights didnt turn out as good as hoped but no doubt it was a cracking card,one of the best in recent times,nobody but the fighters can be accountable for the bouts not catching fire,as much as everyone hates Wazza,he done a great job that night,for one reason or another the fights never really lived up to expectations

I have to disagree with you.

Eubank v Saunders was really the only decent fight worthy of any attention.

Fury v Chisora was hardly spectacular the first time around and im not sure there was any demand for a rematch.

Warren is ultimately responsible for the scheduling of the fights and Eubank v Saunders and Fury v Chisora were on far too late and after too many mediocre fights, that really didnt evoke much excitement before they took place.

And lets not get started on the ticketing issues or the lack of security...

Walsh-Sykes was a 50-50 and Gavin-Skeete was an interesting fight, even if it turned out to be dull and a few of the fights lower down the card were well matched too, Buglioni's fight being a prime example.

It was a decent fight the first time and they had a chance to put it on as a final eliminator for the world title, what else did you expect them to do?

Every fight on the live show before the main event went the distance, apart from putting less fights on or starting earlier, and they started early enough as it was, I don't see what else they could have done.

It seems that outside the ringside areas, security is usually provided by the venue, so that's on them and Fwank had used eventim for the tickets loads of times in the past, I doubt they expected them to fornicate up that badly with the tickets.

A very, very harsh review there, on paper it was the best show put on by any promoter this year and one of the best in the last 5-10 years. No one can be blamed for the fights not really coming alive, that can happen and yes, there were issues elsewhere, I wasn't there, but they seem to have been overblown IMO.

Froch vs Groves 2 much, much better bill

stujones wrote:Froch vs Groves 2 much, much better bill

Better event, but on the whole I thought the undercard was poor.

Joshua, Yafai and Ward in mismatches.

McDonnell fake world title fight against a poor opponent.

DeGale and Mitchell were fighting decent opponents, but both were comfortable favourites, especially DeGale.

Then the main event.

For a show like that, the undercard should have been far better than it was.

expe wrote:

stujones wrote:Froch vs Groves 2 much, much better bill

Better event, but on the whole I thought the undercard was poor.

Joshua, Yafai and Ward in mismatches.

McDonnell fake world title fight against a poor opponent.

DeGale and Mitchell were fighting decent opponents, but both were comfortable favourites, especially DeGale.

Then the main event.

For a show like that, the undercard should have been far better than it was.

Yeah maybe better fighters on the bill but lesser match ups

Here is Franks full list for 2014:

British Fighter of the Year: Amir Khan
Overseas Fighter of the Year: Gennady Golovkin
British Fight of the Year: Billy Joe Saunders v Chris Eubank Jr
Overseas Fight of the Year: Terence Crawford v Yuriorkis Gamboa
Knockout of the Year: Carl Froch v George Groves
Upset of the Year: Andy Lee v Matt Korobov
British Prospect of the Year: Jack Catterall
Overseas Prospect of the Year: Felix Verdejo
Journeyman of the Year: William Warburton
Coach of the Year: Adam Booth
Comeback of the Year: Jermain Taylor
Promotion of the Year: ExCeL Arena (29th November)
Event of the Year: Froch v Groves II (Wembley Stadium)
Promoter of the Year: George Groves

expe wrote:

stujones wrote:Froch vs Groves 2 much, much better bill

Better event, but on the whole I thought the undercard was poor.

Joshua, Yafai and Ward in mismatches.

McDonnell fake world title fight against a poor opponent.

DeGale and Mitchell were fighting decent opponents, but both were comfortable favourites, especially DeGale.

Then the main event.

For a show like that, the undercard should have been far better than it was.

I thought Mitchell and DeGale were 60:40 fights and, in fact, on paper I thought DeGale was in the more difficult fight.

My personal opinion in terms of "evenly matched", the three main fights on the Froch vs Groves 2 bill were of the equal to the three main fights of the Fury vs Chisora bill.... 1 true 50:50 fight (Eubank vs Saunders, Froch vs Groves and 2 60:40 fights a piece).

Okay, the Fury vs Chisora bill had another 60:40 fight on its card (Walsh vs Sykes) but I think given the standard of the Froch vs Groves bill - 1 world title fight and 2 world level fights - I would say the Froch vs Groves bill was better.

stujones wrote:

expe wrote:

stujones wrote:Froch vs Groves 2 much, much better bill

Better event, but on the whole I thought the undercard was poor.

Joshua, Yafai and Ward in mismatches.

McDonnell fake world title fight against a poor opponent.

DeGale and Mitchell were fighting decent opponents, but both were comfortable favourites, especially DeGale.

Then the main event.

For a show like that, the undercard should have been far better than it was.

I thought Mitchell and DeGale were 60:40 fights and, in fact, on paper I thought DeGale was in the more difficult fight.

My personal opinion in terms of "evenly matched", the three main fights on the Froch vs Groves 2 bill were of the equal to the three main fights of the Fury vs Chisora bill.... 1 true 50:50 fight (Eubank vs Saunders, Froch vs Groves and 2 60:40 fights a piece).

Okay, the Fury vs Chisora bill had another 60:40 fight on its card (Walsh vs Sykes) but I think given the standard of the Froch vs Groves bill - 1 world title fight and 2 world level fights - I would say the Froch vs Groves bill was better.

DeGale was 80:20/90:10 IMO, Gonzales was unproven, a draw with Oosthuizen and little else, seemed to be overrated because he was trained by Virgil Hunter. Mitchell fight was closer, but I still thought Mitchell was a comfortable favourite.

Disagree when it comes to the standard of the 2 shows too, neither of those fights were anything close to World level, European level at best for both in my eyes. Froch-Groves was a better main event, but the other show had far better undercard fights on it.

We'll agree to disagree, expe. 90:10 between a fighter 18-0-1 and DeGale (who lost his only fight in European class himself).

90:10 IMO is something like Floyd Mayweather vs Bradley Skeete.

stujones wrote:We'll agree to disagree, expe. 90:10 between a fighter 18-0-1 and DeGale (who lost his only fight in European class himself).

90:10 IMO is something like Floyd Mayweather vs Bradley Skeete.

Fair enough, we obviously use different ways of judging fights, I'd never give Skeete a 1 in 10 chance of beating Floyd Mayweather and I don't think you mean that either.

Fury-Chisora was 80-20 all day long. A fit and focused Fury beats him everytime, with ease. That's why I had no interest in it.

Saunders-Eubank wasn't 50-50 going in. Everything pointed to a clear Saunders win.

lillywhite14 wrote:Fury-Chisora was 80-20 all day long. A fit and focused Fury beats him everytime, with ease. That's why I had no interest in it.

Saunders-Eubank wasn't 50-50 going in. Everything pointed to a clear Saunders win.

Erm. No.
Look back on the videos/articles, opinions were split on this one. Passions were high. In the end, it was actually a very intriguing fight, lost by Eubank Jnr due to a very poor performance in the first 6 rounds.

Fury v Chisora wasn't interesting as it had been cancelled before. Having said that, credit where it's due, Fury's domination was impressive.

UrbanFox wrote:

lillywhite14 wrote:Fury-Chisora was 80-20 all day long. A fit and focused Fury beats him everytime, with ease. That's why I had no interest in it.

Saunders-Eubank wasn't 50-50 going in. Everything pointed to a clear Saunders win.

Erm. No.
Look back on the videos/articles, opinions were split on this one. Passions were high. In the end, it was actually a very intriguing fight, lost by Eubank Jnr due to a very poor performance in the first 6 rounds.

Fury v Chisora wasn't interesting as it had been cancelled before. Having said that, credit where it's due, Fury's domination was impressive.

Furys domination was impressive but I didn't think Del Boy had any chance in that fight so not entirely unexpected. Chisora is done at that level, Fury put the final nail in that coffin.

Eubank had never fought at Saunders' level and had looked bang average at times when fighting journeymen who were there to look good against. He talked himself in to that fight, he didn't earn the shot that's for sure. Eubank performed well in the actual fight though, so fair play to him. It was never 50/50 beforehand though when you look at it with a cool head. The hype led to plenty getting on the Eubank jnr bandwagon though and believing it was 50/50