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British featherweights: the golden division of Britain


BoztheMadman
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For some reason, despite being an European nation populated with many big men, Britain always had a strong featherweight division. It just seems that the smaller guys were the most tenacious and skilled as well, more often than the bigger ones, on the Islands. In the older days, you had "Peerless" Jim Driscoll, the Welshman who used his boxing skills to get out of poverty. While he was definitely one of the best of his time, his career was unfortunately marred with injustices, such as when his winning effort against the great Abe Attell was turned into a no-decision by the corrupt American establishment. His other great fight, against compatriot and lightweight world champion Freddie Welsh, was ruined by Welsh's holding and clinching. In the end, winning the European title became his biggest achievement. Welsh was once a featherweight himself but didn't stay there too long and is most famous as a lightweight, so we'll leave him out of this. Driscoll died at 44, from pneumonia and was destined to be forgotten by the world until the sportswriters started writing about him. Then we had another Welshman, the splendid Howard Winstone. Winstone chased that world title for a long time and had 3 unsuccessful challenges against Vicente Saldivar, one of the best featherweights ever. He had won the national and European titles, but it took him most of his career to finally get that precious world belt which he did by stopping Mitsunori Seki in 1968. However, he had already spent his prime years and was defeated in devastating fashion by Jose Legra, who stopped him in 5 rounds and that was the end of it for Winstone. He died in 2000, aged 61, from kidney disease. A statue was raised for him in his home town of Merthyr Tydfil one year after his death, showing how much he meant to his town, which produced a few other outstanding boxers.

 

Surely everyone remembers Barry McGuigan, the Clones Cyclone, that 5'6 whirlwind who wrecked most of his competition and dethroned the ever-reigning Eusebio Pedroza to win the WBA title. McGuigan defended the title twice until getting unlucky against an unknown Steve Cruz. It was the heat and dehydration that weakened him in the late rounds in outdoors Las Vegas and he ended up getting dropped twice and losing by split decision. After that, his career would never be the same and he ended it in an undeserving way by getting stopped by Jim McDonnell due to a cut, in 4 rounds. Although he never fought some of the best guys in the division like Azumah Nelson and Jeff Fenech, he definitely is one of the greatest British and Irish featherweights. Since then he has gone on to become one of the biggest boxing personalities in Britain, also thanks to his charm and wit and has recently also shown managerial skills in managing the great talent Carl Frampton. In the 90's, his successor turned out to be a boy of Yemeni extraction, called Naseem Hamed. Naz was as much known for his showmanship as his great punching power and became the WBO champion by stopping "Cinderella Man" Steve Robinson in 8 in 1995. Dubbed "Prince", Hamed wrecked havoc in the division for the next five years and made 15 defenses of his WBO title. His perhaps most remembered fight was that against another hard hitter Kevin Kelley, where Hamed was down three times and put Kelley down three times, finally ending the fight in 4 rounds. In 2001 however, an under-prepared Hamed was taken by surprise and beaten by Marco Antonio Barrera, however he lasted the distance. It remained his only career loss and he retired after one more fight, at only 28.

 

Scott Harrison, the epitome of Scottish machismo and toughness, The Real McCoy...few had expected him to take over the torch from Hamed, but he outfought Juan Pablo Chacon to first capture the same WBO title and defend it once against Wayne McCullough before losing it to the very slick and clever Manuel Medina. He stopped Medina in 11 to recapture the title and then made six defenses, including a KO4 against Michael Brodie, before his own unruliness and temper took it away from him. He was involved in an altercation in a nightclub and was unable to make his mandatory defense in May 2006. He then failed to make the weight before the fight with Nicky Cook in December and it resulted in him being stripped of his title. Another fighting incident in a nightclub in Spain ended with him behind bars in Malaga. He was released after five months and was planning to make a return as a super featherweight, but further problems prevented him from doing that and he finally returned to the ring as a lightweight in 2012, winning 2 easy fights before losing a fight on 20 April 2013 to Liam Walsh by UD. He then had his boxing license suspended and was told to report in jail within 15 days, in May that year. He was then extradited to Spain but returned home in May this year to serve the remainder of his four year sentence in a Glasgow prison. A sad end for such a promising and ferocious fighter.

 

Of course, we must mention the Cinderella Man, Steve Robinson, another Welshman. After an unsuccesful career start which saw him lose 9 fights out of the first 23, in April 1993 he was given a fight on 2 weeks notice against John Davison-for the vacant WBO title! It was a very controversial move by WBO but the most surprising thing is that the journeyman Robinson won, by a close unanimous decision. He then made 7 defenses, even more surprisingly, including a 12-round stoppage in a climactic war against former WBC champion Paul Hodkinson and a one-punch knockout against 3-division world champion Duke McKenzie. He finally had to give away the title to the younger, faster and harder-punching Naseem Hamed in September 1995. He had a mostly successful remainder of his career and won the European title in 1999 against Manuel Calvo, but never received a rematch offer from Hamed. He did fight on too long after his prime had ended and lost his last 6 fights, including a TKO 3 loss to Scott Harrison.

 

And today...we have Lee Selby. Yet another Welshman who has extraordinary boxing skills and footwork and is holding the IBF title. Selby is bound to continue on the path of his countrymen Driscoll and Winstone and may get even farther. Actually, in defending his world title, he has, since Winstone never did that. He has some good names on his resume as well: Fernando Montiel, Evgeny Gradovich, Rendall Munroe, Martin Lindsay, Stephen Smith and John Simpson. He was the first and so far the only man to knock out Stephen Smith who recently twice fought for a world title. The aforementioned Carl Frampton however has the best win in his relatively short tenure as a featherweight-Leo Santa Cruz. He is also bound to join the ranks of the greatest British featherweights in history. There is also that Leeds man Josh Warrington who is currently undefeated at 24-0 and who recently stopped Patrick Hyland. He has also beaten Lindsay and Munroe. And we also have to mention Paul Ingle, the former IBF champion who first gave Hamed a hard fight before being stopped in the 11th round, before he captured the title against Manuel Medina by UD and defended it once by TKO11 against Junior Jones, before being brutally stopped in the last round by Mbulelo Botile. That stoppage ended his career and confined him to a wheelchair. Patrick Pat Cowdell was the European champion between 1982 and 1985 but is most remembered for his devastating one-round knockout loss to Azumah Nelson in a WBC-title fight in 1985.

 

Thank you. I hope you have enjoyed this historical presentation.

Edited by BoztheMadman
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Re: British featherweights: the golden division of Britain

 

The Celts seem to be a shorter race. The Welsh aren't tall in general like the Czech's or Scandinavians.

 

Wales has been blessed with Great featherweights like Freddie Welsh, Jim Driscoll and Howard Winstone. I've been lucky enough to watch Lee Selby and Steve Robinson train. I've covered a couple of Lee Selby's fights from ringside and interviewed both him and Steve Robinson. Both really nice people.

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  • 1 month later...

Re: British featherweights: the golden division of Britain

 

The Celts seem to be a shorter race. The Welsh aren't tall in general like the Czech's or Scandinavians.

 

Wales has been blessed with Great featherweights like Freddie Welsh, Jim Driscoll and Howard Winstone. I've been lucky enough to watch Lee Selby and Steve Robinson train. I've covered a couple of Lee Selby's fights from ringside and interviewed both him

and Steve Robinson. Both really nice people.

The Czech's? Where did you get them from? :laugh: They aren't so tall, Yugoslavs and Ukrainians and Russians are taller.

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