BoxRec

This seems genuin to me. Anyone know anything, what dose everyone think the fight would be like. My money would be on froch but I have no doubt that is would be a great fight and Barny would deffinatly be in with a shout.

Barney issues £100,000 side bet to Hennessey

By Clive Bernath: Former undefeated British super-middleweight champion Matthew Barney has put out a challenge to Commonwealth king Carl Froch and for good measure has issued a £100,000 side bet to Froch's promoter Mick Hennessey.

The 30 year-old from Southampton, who is the current WBU light-heavyweight champion, contacted SecondsOut earlier today to make the challenge, and insisted the offer is genuine.

"This is definitely a genuine offer," said Barney, who has just returned from an eight week trip to Toronto in Canada. "I would never say something I did not mean. Between me and my family we will put the money up. There is no way he (Froch) can beat me. I'm that confident I will win, have you seen Froch fight? I doubt Hennessey will take the offer because we have already approached him with it but he did not want to know.

"He (Froch) has had good management so far. He has been able to prepare for his fights with plenty of notice and been able to pick and choose his opponents. I have never been able to do that."

Barney has been offered the Froch fight recently but turned the fight down. He was approached to replace Tony Dodson when the Liverpool based British super-middleweight champion pulled out of a title defence against Froch on June 2 but Barney was not ready to take such an important fight at such short notice.

"I was away in Canada at the time and offered the fight at less than a week's notice," explained Barney. "I was weighing 12st 10 pounds at the time and was not prepared to lose 10 pounds in a week and not having been in proper training."

Barney's awkward style is not particularly pleasing on the eye but has proved effective in running up 20 wins against four losses and a draw. He has also become frustrated at not having fought since surprisingly outscoring Portsmouth's Tony Oakey for the WBU title in October 2003.

"I just want to fight, I don't care who it is," continued Barney. " I'm prepared to go down to middleweight and fight Howard Eastman, Calzaghe (Joe) at super-middle or even defend my title at light-heavyweight. I really don't care. I have the style to beat anyone.

" If a champion is a true champion then they should fight anyone. You don't get this in football. All the teams have to play each other. All the champions today just want to be pick their own fights and be protected."


(secondsout.com)

A great fight!!!??? I very much doubt it.

In my opinion he lost the fight to an albeit very talented one-handed Dean Francis. How does he think he'll cope with a two handed Carl Froch?

By either backpedalling furiously flicking out his jab or lying down for a 10 count.

Froch clearly has a great future without BBC-TV coverage. A few weeks ago he was talking about "unifying" the world titles. Now he's being called out by Matthew Barney.

bennie wrote:Froch clearly has a great future without BBC-TV coverage. A few weeks ago he was talking about "unifying" the world titles. Now he's being called out by Matthew Barney.

Very witty.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:By either backpedalling furiously flicking out his jab or lying down for a 10 count.

Also very amusing!

style to beat anybody? morelike style to bore anybody

Barney must be one of the most lucky boxers in the UK, so boring.

lucky to get a win over a one armed Dean Francis and was floored, then got lucky by catching Tony Oakey on one of his darker days "sniff sniff".

Any fighter that makes that much noise throwing a jab deserves to be knocked out

Matt Barney... please sod off....

Barney was whinging he was skint not too long ago, so pray tell, where does he think he can get hold of £100,000?

I hope this match doesn't happen because it will stink to high heaven. Barney will make no attempt to make a contest of it whatsoever.

Barney would be an absolute complete and utter fool to gamble that kind of money with his hideous, hugely unpopular style.

He'd be better off reducing the bet to £50k and using the rest of it to try and pay off the judges. He's got naf all chance of getting a decision otherwise.

I can't understand why he hasn't been disqualified more than he has. British refs allow far too much holding and usually only take a point away when we're in the closing stages.

I think Barney had 3 separate points deducted against Chris Nembhard but still copped a decision. Excessive holding is cheating and surely when you've had 3 points taken, you should just be thrown out? It doesn't seem at all fair that someone can win a fight this way.

barney is just desperate to get a fight iam not a lover of froch but i know he will beat barney what other fights are there for him apart from dodson?who barney will not shout out cause he knows how good dodson is and how strong a fighter he is i know the pair used to train together in london when dodson was with jimmy tibbs.for froch to get any where up the u.k ratings ladder he has to beat dodson which i honestly dont think he can if dodson is on song and i know thats a big if but every time dodson has boxed a good fighter hes raised his game and froch doesnt like to fight he likes everything his own way ow and by the way dodson loves to fight hes been in the trenches and come out still standing,will froch,i doubt it.

I don't like the look of this fight, but it looks like it will happen. Be 'interesting' to see how Froch handles Barney.