Beyond Boxing

Nothing makes me happier than reuniting with my brothers. As a three, we opened up a lane of podcasting where fans got to see beyond the spin and the subterfuge. So, today, we reunite, 7 years after we came together, like Voltron, and hopefully we are still that barometer of where the fans when it comes to boxing. We always wanted to be more than a podcast and hopefully, our enduring friendship de...

Conor Benn is having a conversion on the road to Damascus. He is now open to fighting in the UK again, after being steadfastly against it. Maybe the reality of his options has dawned on him, and hopefully, the reality of a ban will also dawn on him too. For the credibility for the sport, he must be punished, no matter how much he is loved by the public.

It is a crazy and maybe sad situation that the biggest star of the summer will be Chris Eubank Jr. With no AJ, and increasingly, no Fury, this might be as good as it gets. Does this fight end any different than the last one? It's hard to see how.

It is always good when we get a superfight with box boxers in their prime. We got that with Davis v Garcia. Boxing is the winner here and as much as we may want to criticise the ending, we need to remember that it's not us taking those shots. There will be a lot of ex boxers with an opinion, but never got to this level. Don't be like them. Let u rejoice that we got a fight when we were promised. I...

In some ways i feel for Eddie Hearn. He gets wheeled out to talk about a lot of things he doesn't understand, and often gets it wrong. Then again, he brings it on himself. This Conor Benn issue is a mess, and it is on his watch. No idea if it is him or his dad that are calling the shots, but everything backfired.

Instead of seeing this as a loss and demotion for Joyce, see it as Zhang adding himself into the heavyweight mix and making it interesting again. We want to see Zhang tested now, which add spice to the division

Why are the Americans so much better at producing stars than the Brits are? Why is it that, every three years they unleash a new wave of talent, while we mine out veterans to within an inch of their lives? How do we fix British Boxing?

Amir Khan is not innocent, but he did show how you handle a doping violation. Conor Benn should learn from this.

Anthony Joshua was rightly criticised for his performance against Jermaine Franklin, who ended up enhancing his own name in the process, but are we being fair? It depends on how you want to frame AJ's career. Tune in and see where this episode lands on this topic.

When Dave Coldwell loses faith in you, and he is Matchroom through and through, you know it is bad. The performance was not a disaster, but it wasn’t the spectacular statement we were promised. Is that because Anthony Joshua is on the downside of his career? The demands of his style on is body are massive and the demands on his mind and spirit from the public are even greater. Is it all catching u...

What a mad journey that has led Anthony Joshua and Jermaine Franklin to the O2 on April 1st. Whatever you think of AJ, the man did beat the odds of life and now sits in a position where he can take or leave boxing. The question is, after Saturday, which will he choose?

This weekend we had three televised cards, and all of them were weak. This country does not have the talent pool to be spreading fighters so thin. It will kill the sport, at a time when fans have very little to be excited about. When will we hold promoters, other than Eddie Hearn, accountable because they should have put him out of business ages ago. The fact that he is still top of the tree is a...

Timing is everything, and from looking like a guy on the verge of a crisis, Eddie Hearn has come out fighting these last few weeks. Maybe he knows he is on borrowed time at DAZN, because the experiment is not working.

When you have Dan Azeez firing, and you've got Ben Whittaker to come, signing Joshua Buatsi seems odd. Not a signing borne from desperation but maybe muddled thinking. Josh has flattered to deceive for 6 years now, and you suspect that, at his age, making the necessary progress to be truly elite may prove difficult.

Big congratulations to Dan Azeez - European Champion! We all though Eddie Hearn was the problem, and that, if we moved him out the way, all the big fights would happen. Well, it turns out he wasn't the problem, we still can't get the fights we want. Now, people wonder why the Youtube market is growing rapidly.

Conor Benn, in another badly advised move, decided to go on the piers Morgan show. As much as Piers tried to low-ball Conor and throw him some crumbs, Benn kept shooting himself in the foot. So, I had to say something.

Warren Boxing Management look like they might be bringing small-hall boxing back. Is this a start of something new, or has the boxing market rebounded post-COVID? Also, this is the time i pause to reflect on Haye-Bellew and the pivoltal effect it had on my life in boxing.

A quick round up of everything that I have missed in the last week.

I guess Furyocity beats Prime. It is easy to hammer this as a gimmick fight, but all sports have gimmicks - events that sit outside the usual ebb and flow of the elite level of any sport. Boxing finally has its own version and it's a good thing. Where it's fair to challenge is whether it should have any boxing crossover at all. It feels like having current boxers and media figures connected leaves...

https://linktr.ee/highfieldboxing Every successful sport needs a strong governing body. Boxing doesn’t have one. The BBBoC do an amazing job on almost every facet of the sport, especially safety, but the Conor Benn scandal has shown how limited they really are. You’d never get these issues with the NFL, NBA, of Premier League. Until boxing fixes that, it’s a sport that will struggle to grow.

It is a rough time for Matchroom at the moment. They really need a win. The stable is weak, the golden geese are laying no eggs and DAZN customers are sticking the knife in by cancelling their subscriptions.

https://linktr.ee/highfieldboxing With two of his cash cows coping with defeats and the other fighting a doping ban, Eddie Hearn has a lot on his plate. Making it harder is the reality that DAZN doesn’t need boxing in the same way and Hearn is an incidental part of its growth journey. How he copes with this will define a large part of his legacy. Currently, the glow recedes by the day and the halo...

I will go on record and say Beterbiev will beat Bivol. Bivol is too conventional to be a threat, but it will be competitive

The aim in every title fight is to go the 12, do the championship distance, and prove you have the resilience and capacity to do it. Twice now, Anthony Yarde has started that climb, and twice he has had to stop. Is the real reason behind this the lack of competitive fights on his record. Would he benefit from a run at all his domestic rivals to build that resilience and in-ring stamina, which look...

Harsh reality is that the Eubank-Jones axis was doomed to failure. One finds t hard to coach and one finds it hard to listen. People need to choose their trainers carefully, because it's the fighter that has to live with the humiliation of a stoppage.