IT’S great to see British boxing well and truly on the map. With Anthony Joshua dominating the heavyweight division and Tyson Fury looking to knock back on the door, the world is standing up and looking on in awe at our fighters.
My pal, Liam Smith, put in a brave performance against the tough Jaime Munguia and George Groves vs Callum Smith in the World Boxing Super Series final is going to be a cracker, showing our guys are challenging throughout the divisions. Kell Brook and James Degale are two more on a list that could go on and on.
And that’s why it’s awesome to see my home region finally start to stand up and be noticed. Lewis Ritson and Josh Kelly are already headlining sell-out shows at Newcastle’s Metro Arena with Eddie Hearn excited at the idea of a stadium fight down the line; whether that’d be the Stadium of Light or St James’ Park would depend on the fighter! I know first-hand how amazing the north east crowd is and I’m excited for the world to see this.
Also helping this happen is the arrival of MTK. It’s great to hear that MTK, with the likes of Billy Joe Saunders and Carl Frampton on their books, has opened up a base in Newcastle. MTK Newcastle focuses on MMA too, but their boxing stable is an exciting one with Kyle Redfearn’s style supposedly a crowd-pleaser and gym manager Brad Tarren and the boys look to have put an amazing facility together. It can only be a positive for the region that they’ve chosen to have a branch up here and we will surely go from strength to strength.
The local promoters are doing a great job in keeping the boxing scene going at a lower level too and it’s great to see their hard work, as well as the fighters’, isn’t going unnoticed.
It’s surely only a matter of time before we have another long-awaited world champion and I’ll be proudly watching on from across the Pond.
