Safe Side Of The Ropes

By: Andrew Harrison

Oct 12 2010

Category: Uncategorized

4 Comments

This weekend’s action centres on three bouts, all of which feature overwhelming favourites; poor for those who like competitive boxing matches and even worse for gambling types looking to swell their coffers.

Vitali Klitschko, one of the two best heavyweights in the world alongside his brother Wladimir, goes all Stars in Your Eyes on us (“tonight Matthew, I’m going to be……Lennox Lewis!”) on Saturday in Hamburg. Taking a hot tub time machine back to 1998, he’ll look to beat up on the greatest asthmatic of all time, Shannon “The Cannon” Briggs in what figures to be a geriatric retread of Shannon’s last meaningful contest.

Friday sees arguably the finest super middleweight in the world alongside Andre Ward, Lucian Bute warming up his fists on the head of former reality television star Jesse Brinkley. On the same bill in Montreal’s Bell Centre, Adrian Diaconu looks to rebuild from a pair of losses to light heavyweight kingpin Jean Pascal. “The Shark” will be attempting to serrate the power punching Palestinian catcher’s mitt, Omar Sheika.

All straightforward assignments then, but which one is the easiest?

A quick foray through Oddschecker.com reveals that Klitschko posts anywhere from 1-16 to 1-33 to best Briggs. The preferred route seems to be via knockout in the middle part of the contest with Briggs viewed as having nothing more than a puncher’s chance (and you can throw in your day job by correctly picking the round of a Briggs despatch).

Shannon is now 38 and despite being the younger pup by a few months, he’s a million miles away from the lithe stud who looked a racing certainty to become the next great heavyweight of the post Mike Tyson melee, part way through the 1990’s. Gone is the speed of both hand and foot which marked him out as a potential golden child, replaced with a disconcerting amount of muscle mass and grey hair (deftly pruned from his beard this week to give the illusion that he’s still roadworthy).

Klitschko, the man with the finest knockout ratio in world class boxing is the fresher of the two old campaigners, sixteen fights adrift from Briggs’ career ledger. He’ll look to evade Shannon’s punches by swaying his head high up in the air and away out of range in that ungainly manner of his before slamming home left jabs and heavy overhand rights.

Briggs, meanwhile, will be full of confidence in his hitting ability after sparking out a series of overmatched schlubs in the past twelve months (originally four, with one later changed to a no contest after Briggs flunked a drugs test). Despite the poor quality of opposition, there’s nothing like four opening round wipe outs to hypnotise a fighter into thinking they’re suddenly Sonny Liston redux. I give Briggs one chance to upset the applecart. He needs to land his left hook, a punch which almost toppled Vitali many moons ago in L.A after Corrie Sanders slammed a pearler clean into his mush.

Bute similarly is a narrow favourite to have his hand raised on Friday with odds ranging from 1-12 to 1-20. “Le Tombeur” (“The Lady Killer” by all accounts) is favoured to get Brinkley out of there, yet those tricky oddsmakers haven’t totally discounted a decision victory either. Jesse too is given a puncher’s chance, fancied to win via stoppage rather than by managing to outbox the superb fencer he’s about to encounter.

Bute is 26-0 (21), a sharpshooter coming off a pair of “did you *deleted expletive* see that?” type knockouts over Librado Andrade and Edison Miranda. Rated the top man at 168 lbs by Ring Magazine, this classy Canadian based Romanian will be lying in the long grass for the winner of Showtime’s Super Six tournament next summer.

Brinkley (35-5, 22 kayos) comes into this bout as mandatory challenger for Bute’s alphabet strap. A game trier, he has a fair dig on him, a decent work ethic and enters the contest on a nine fight winning streak dating back to 2007 (where he dropped a couple of L’s to Robin Reid and Joey Spina). In all likelihood, he’s going to catch an extended whupping here until the referee shows mercy and cuts short the barrage.

Diaconu has the widest odds of our trio and can be backed between 1-8 and 1-10. Another Romanian domiciled in Canada, Adrian is tipped to finish proceedings in the bout’s third quarter. Oddly, Sheika is just as much of an outsider to win via the scorecards as he is by landing a Hail Mary inside the distance.

Despite the reverses Pascal hung on him, Diaconu acquitted himself well in both encounters and is unlikely to be carrying the type of mental and physical baggage we’re used to seeing when a beaten fighter returns up those ring steps. Looking for his 27^th win and 16^th stoppage, he’ll likely get straight into Sheika’s face and start whacking away in search of a knockout.

Sheika (30-9, 21 kayos) has been around the block more than a few times. He holds a single notable victory over the indomitable Glen Johnson, flooring “The Road Warrior” en route to a majority decision win. Unfortunately for Sheika, that happened almost ten years ago and he’s been pancaked since by a who’s who of name fighters including Joe Calzaghe, Roy Jones, Jeff Lacy, Marcus Beyer, Thomas Tate and Tony Booth (ok I threw that last one in to see if you were still awake). He has a hell of a swat on him and a plethora of guts yet he has more miles on him than Joan Collins.

So are we any closer to answering the original question?

Despite Klitschko showing as the strongest favourite of the three, Briggs (at 9-1) is given more of a shot than is Brinkley (around 10-1). It’s logic I’d be inclined go along with. At only 6-1, meanwhile, the number crunchers have fingered Sheika as the likeliest of our underdogs to spring an upset, which again makes some sense.

One would have to deduce that it’s Bute with the simplest evening ahead of him, despite the fact that he’s facing a guy who surely must have more to offer than either Briggs or Sheika. If an upset had to be plumped for in the other two bouts, I’d be forced to go with our oversized, pineapple headed, Brooklynite friend. Clichés are never more prevalent than in heavyweight boxing and one well placed howitzer from Shannon Briggs would usher in the proverbial mother load.

Picture credit Public Address/KMG/Dmitriy Abramov

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