The most notable Heavyweight bouts of the day all took place in the United Kingdom with 3 very notable fighters in action.
The first of the UK bouts saw the 19 year old Hughie Fury (13-0, 8) forcing a stoppage of American Matthew Greer (16-12, 13). Greer, who is a journeyman at best, has now been stopped in 4 of his last 5 contests and 6 of his last 8 and really needs to think about calling an end to his career before he gets seriously hurt. As for Fury his performance was solid, he looked sharp on his toes and with his punches and seems to be showing some of the skills that his team are telling the world he has. Unfortunately, and rather disgustingly, the fight did see some of the acne on his back popping and this was certainly one of the uglier moments of the night.
In the second Heavyweight bout on that card we saw an over-weight Tyson Fury (22-0, 16), Hughie's older and more well known cousin, defeat American puncher Joey Abell (29-8, 28). Abell did manage to trouble Fury a few times and Fury, who did carry a spare tyre, didn't look at his best. Despite the fact Fury didn't look 100% he still got the job done, dropping Abell numerous times on route to 4th round TKO.
The third and final of the Heavyweight clashes on Britain saw former world title challengers colliding as Dereck Chisora (20-4, 13) and Kevin Johnson (29-5-1, 14) got it on in an intriguing match up. Chisora seemed to just out work Johnson in the first 9 rounds or saw before Johnson started to show off the skills we all know he has. Unfortunately for Johnson it was too little too late and one must wonder just what needs to happen before he's willing to fight for 3 minutes a round. If he could do that then he could well claim a world title in a post-Klitschko era.
The victories for Chisora and Tyson Fury have moved up on to a fight between the two, a fight few will genuinely complain about.
The Fury boy's weren't the only unbeaten Heavyweight's in action in Europe as Sweden's very own Otto Wallin (6-0, 4) also extended his winning run.
Wallin, fighting for the second time this year, was matched with the experienced Ladislav Kovarik (10-16, 5). Having gone the schedule in his past 2 bouts we had assumed that Wallin may end up hearing the final bell here, instead however he stopped Kovarik with just 2 minutes left.
Wallin is talented, young and a good looking however he does need a lot of time to develop. We would certainly not think about rushing this kid though the potential is there and is there in a big way.
In the US we saw the debut of Trey Lippe (1-0, 1), the son of former world champion Tommy Morrison. Lippe was dropped by Kris Renty (1-1, 1) before turning things around and stopping Renty in round 3. Lippe will certainly be a fighter who gets a lot of attention due to who his father though he is very unlikely to ever get as far as "The Duke".
Further south, all the way in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we saw a very young man in action as Esteban Juarez (2-0, 2), a 16 year old prospect, stopped Joaquin Pereyra (0-1) in 3 rounds. We're very interested in following Juarez, esepcially considering his age, though we're been stumped as to just what his credentials are.
From a 16 year old to a 37 year. We move back to Europe for the unbeaten Jens Tietze (3-0, 3) who recorded his third stoppage by beating the relatively hapless Milos Doveden (0-3) who has now been stopped 3 times. Whilst we're interested in Juarez, it's hard to say we care about Tietze who is 37 and beating on incredibly poor competition. In his 3 fights to date Tietze's opponents have had a combined 0-26-1 record.
Staying in Germany, for the final fight, there was a rare victory for Werner Kreiskott (15-19-2, 9) as he over-came the debuting Andre Bunga (0-1) by a score of 39-38. From what we understand Kreiskott deserved no more than a draw and the picture of him celebrating seemed to suggest that he knew he didn't deserve the victory.