By Glenn Pearson
A new British heavyweight champion will help breathe new life into the sport and encourage more youngsters into boxing, according to former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan.
More than 800,000 are believed to have paid to watch Burmondsey-born David Haye become the new WBA heavyweight champion last Saturday night, after he beat man-mountain Nikolai Valuev on points in Nuremberg, Germany.
The fight - billed as David v Goliath on Sky Box Office because of the seven stone and nine-inch difference between the two fighters – helped put boxing back in the spotlight after several years in the doldrums.
Haye follows in the footsteps of boxing greats such as Lennox Lewis and Frank Bruno, who have both been heavyweight champions, and has the chance to continue promoting the division and the sport with potentially explosive fights against fellow heavyweight title-holders Vladimir and Vitali Klitschko next year.
Barry McGuigan, who has lived in Canterbury for the last 20 years, believes Haye’s rise to fame is a good thing for the sport and fully expects to see a boom in interest.
“There was a lot of people that watched the fight and it sparked great interest,” he told Kent News. “He is an attractive guy who is very articulate and he can punch hard and all of those things have made people interested in him.
“It’s great for the sport that Britain now has a world champion and now there’s the chance of unification fights against the Klitschko brothers. He can transcend the sport.”
McGuigan continues to coach at the Aylesham Boxing Club in Canterbury and has already noticed a surge in interest as a result of Haye’s achievement. The 49-year-old, who won 32 of his 35 professional fights, believes that a British world champion, combined with the Olympic Games coming to these shores in 2012, will help unearth more boxing talent in Kent.
“[Haye] has stoked the interest again in casual boxing fans and has the chance to take the heavyweight division - which is the sport’s shop window - firmly out of the doldrums and get it back to the Lennox Lewis days,” he said.
“The interest in amateur boxing has gone through the roof as a result and with 2012 around the corner, there’s a sense of anticipation in the sport. With the Olympics being held in Greenwich the fast rail networks means international teams will want to use facilities in the county and that can only help. We’ve got some very talented youngsters coming through, so it’s looking very positive.”
POSTED: 15/11/2009 09:00:00
Bookmark with:
Email to a friend: