HOSEA BURTON was disappointed to see Frank Buglioni fight Craig Richards on the Anthony Joshua undercard in Cardiff on October 28. Hosea Burton had lost the British light-heavyweight title to Buglioni last year and his gym-mate Callum Johnson was due to challenge Frank, until injury ruled him out. Hosea Burton was ready to step in at short notice.
“I’m one of those boxers who try to stay fit all the time because you could get a chance at any time,” he told Boxing News. “I’m ready to fight Frank whenever.
“When we knew Callum was out, Joe said to Eddie Callum was out but Hosea will take the fight. I was training. I’m always reasonably fit. I was ready to take it. Because I think this is the only way I’ll get a fight with Frank. He really doesn’t want the fight. He got offered a huge amount of money to fight on the Joshua-Klitschko bill, for the rematch, and he turned it down. He wants to win the belt outright without having a real fight. Mine was a real fight, he got beat 10 rounds out of 12 but luckily enough for him he got me in the last round when I was exhausted. I never knew what 12 rounds was about. The most I’d done was eight rounds once before at my own pace. So to go from that to a 12 round high workrate fight was a big step up. His bonus ball came in that night, he hit the jackpot, he won the lottery, whatever one you want to say. He knows he’ll never be as lucky as again. He got me with a minute to go. I’m pretty sure he’ll never do that again.
“I’ve been 12 rounds, I know what 12 rounds is about and I know how hard you’ve got to train for them. I would have fought Frank on the Cardiff bill no problem on a great big undercard.”
He was unimpressed both to see Craig Richards get the fight and with Buglioni’s performance. “Buglioni fought Craig Richards. He wasn’t ranked top 10 and he wasn’t even a light-heavyweight,” Burton said. “I don’t know how he got the chance to fight for the British title.”
“Frank was very disappointing. Frank’s not been the same man since he fought me. Frank had a career best performance when he boxed me,” he added. “Now he’s fought me I think I took a lot out of him. He took a lot of punishment when I boxed him. He took an awful lot.”
