By Stuart Young
Some of you may, or may not, have noticed that I’ve been a bit quiet on the ol’ article writing of late. Although I can assure my loyal fans that I haven’t lost my passion for the premiere sport on the planet, been abducted by aliens or converted to the ‘dark side’ preferring to watch two men writhing around the floor semi-naked in a passionate embrace in a celebration of UFC’s finest fistic talents just yet, I’ve just been…. well y’know – just kinda busy.
My last two articles that made their way onto ‘the net’ were titled
“Amir to hand out a masterclass” – http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=23848&more=1
“Haye Vs Ruiz Preview”, – http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=23314&more=1
If you would, please take a few minutes to read both articles.
If you did actually take the time out to read them, I can now guess what your thinking, something along the lines of “Jesus! this guys good… real good!” and I am – anyhow, I don’t want to be known as some sort of boxing demi-god just yet, or hailed as the second coming of Nostradamus, naturally I really don’t like to gloat but I pretty much nailed both the fights as they were, give or take a round or two.
The fact that John Ruiz and Pauli Malignaggi had only been stopped twice between them in over 80 professional bouts only adds to the awe of which these seemingly ‘legendary’ predictions are now held by many in the boxing fraternity.
So now I’ve managed to grab your attention, I intend to let it be known that from now, until Christmas, I will be once again be putting my head on the chopping block with a weekly column / prediction / betting article that shoots from the hip and pulls no punches.
First up this weekend, is the David Haye Vs Audley Harrison mismatch, sorry – fight.
Ok, a lot of people are getting rather exited about this fight in Britain, with almost everyone getting caught up in the hype, casual fans are being drawn to the sport like moths to a flame, everyone has an opinion on it whether you ask the butcher, baker, or candlestick maker down the street – and that’s just a list some of Harrison’s previous opponents.
If you’re a hardened boxing expert like myself, or just a regular beer-swilling, smoking yob, who resides in our UK city centre pubs at weekends, I’m here to offer you poor souls – the average punter, who usually struggles to pick his nose correctly, a way to make some serious hard cash, and with their being a global recession on, I won’t even charge you for the tipping service.
To make money, first you must distance yourself from the epidemic that is currently sweeping these shores that possesses a far greater threat to your physical and mental health (or wallet for that matter) than bird flu or swine flu ever could.
Your loved ones could have this disease and not even know it yet, your best friend could have it, your daughter’s boyfriend, your doctor, your doctor’s doctor, even worse, YOU could be suffering with this disease right now and not even know about it.
Since I’ve discovered this disease, I found myself with the distinction of being able to name it, so I’ve chosen the aptly named it “Hatton’s Syndrome.”
It’s a disease that attacks the brain making an otherwise sane person become delusional, unable to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not, victims can often be found talking in riddles and spouting general nonsense whilst genuinely believing whatever he/she is saying as the truth and that certain individuals can now perform seemingly impossible feats, they seem to like the chant “YES I CAN” and have adopted it as their motto.
I’ve identified the ‘carrier’ of this disease through hours of tedious detective work and traced it back to it’s source which happens to be none other than (fr)Audley Harrison, and what’s really scary about this ‘germ’ is now it’s mutated and become ‘airborne’ meaning it’s infection rate has rocketed to fever-pitch levels over the last few weeks, infecting masses of people from all sections of society, regardless of color or creed it is expected to peak on Saturday 13th November.
Fortunately for us, David Haye carries large doses of the anti-venom and after a few stiff jabs everyone should be restored to their previous state of mind by the morning of 14th November suffering no more than slight side-effects that include feeling a heightened sense of stupidity, shame and just a little embarrassment.
On 13th November expect Harrison to enter the ring and perform his best ice-cube impression as he will freeze faster than a rabbit in headlights once he’s taken centre stage.
I wouldn’t recommend backing Harrison with my hard-earned cash even if he entered the ring armed with a Tommy Gun on Saturday night, obviously not to be confused with Tommy ‘The Machine’ Gunn from the Rocky films, (who would actually stand a better chance in his current state than the methodical plodding Harrison in his) so I won’t advise you to back him with your money either, unless of course, your after revenge and have access to someone’s credit card you really despise!
But in all seriousness, help yourself to the generous 5/6 currently on offer at Skybet that David Haye wins the fight by TKO/KO or DSQ in rounds 1-6 or for those of you who like to live a little more dangerously take the 11/4 on offer by both Coral & Bluesquare that Haye wins by the same method of victory in rounds 1-3.
That should set us up nicely for some late night boxing action over the pond, where on the same night ‘Filipino Flash’ and current P4P king Manny Pacquiao takes on Mexican warrior Antonio ‘Tony’ Margarito in a Bob Arum promoted clash at Dallas Cowboy’s stadium in Dallas, Texas.
Fortunately, these days after the hand wrap scandal and subsequent 12 month ban suffered by Margarito, Freddie Roach will insist on being present in Margarito’s dressing room while ‘Tony’ gets his hands wrapped. With Roach inspecting the ‘wrapping’ closer than the proverbial short sighted ‘bookworm’ in a reading class for any ‘illegal workmanship’ you can be sure that the only granite Margarito will be ‘loaded’ with in this bout is the type he naturally possesses in his whiskers.
Known for his durability, Antonio Margarito has showed all the lateral movement of a slug stuck in treacle in recent bouts and I don’t expect a new head trainer Robert Garcia, to be pulling up any trees reinventing Margarito’s fighting style at this late stage of his career.
Manny Pacquiao should be able to use his speed and his unconventional in-and-out style to pot-shot Margarito at will with jabs, left-hooks & counters all night long while coasting to a wide unanimous decision with relative ease.
So that’s why I recommend you take the rather tasty 10/3 being offered at Bet365 for Pacquiao to win this fight by Points or Technical decision, sit back, relax, and wait for the money to roll in.
Good luck and happy punting.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
[…] following on from the success from last week:- (http://www.fightkings.com/featured-article/boxing-betting-giving-the-bookmakers-a-black-eye/) where we left the bookmakers more dazed, bloodied and confused than Antonio Margarito, we now […]
great