Boxing: Brodie hoping Hamed is on the horizon
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Your support makes all the difference.Michael Brodie is sensible enough to realise that the world title he defends tonight against Mexico's Louis Fuente is not enough to make him the best featherweight in the country.
Brodie won the World Boxing Federation bauble back in May but like most championship belts in modern boxing it is little more than a piece of jewellery. Brodie wants a fight with Sheffield's Naseem Hamed, who himself holds the International Boxing Organisation version of the title.
"Right now I believe that Naz is the best featherweight in the country but he has given me his word that he will meet me next year and when that happens I think I will be the best featherweight in the country," said Brodie.
However, there are various indicators to suggest that Hamed actually entering a British ring against a British fighter is highly unlikely. The main stumbling block will be that there is simply not enough cash to make it worthwhile.
Brodie's honesty is welcome in the murky world of professional boxing where deception is often a key negotiating tool but even he appears to have forgotten that Glasgow's Scott Harrison holds the meaningful World Boxing Organisation version of the featherweight title.
Amazingly, there are two other so-called world title fights on tonight's bill at the Altringham Leisure centre. There was a time, back in the Seventies, when just one or two world title fights took place each year but now there are six or seven each month in British rings.
Wayne Rigby defends his WBF light welterweight title for the second time against Liverpool's nine bout novice Gary Ryder. Rigby has been in some of boxing's most appalling and bloody fights during the last few years.
The third world title fight involves Belfast's Brian Magee against an American journey man called Jose Spearman for the IBO's super middleweight title. Spearman is a replacement and should fold by about five or six rounds against Magee, who like Brodie is close enough to being world class.
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