Sadly we, the hardcore, are out numbered so any boxing is better than no boxing.
The tournament, which featured James Toney, Jason Gavern, Damian Wills, Brian Minto (team USA) and Michael Sprott, Tom Little, Matt Legg and Larry Olubamiwo (team UK) may have been a case of has-beens and who? But it was fun, mainly due to Jason Gavern who genuinely was bundle of fun.
The first round of fights saw the aforementioned Gavern defeating Olubamiwo (10-4, 9) by decision with "The War Machine" suffering a knockdown; Brian Minto defeating Tom Little (3-2) via what appeared to be a clear decision in the eyes of everyone but the sole judge who had Little winning; James Toney stopping the completely out classed Matt Legg (6-2, 2) and Michael Sprott coming through against Damian Wills (31-4-1, 24).
Following the quarter finals we were left with Gavern v Toney and Sprott against Minto. Despite the quarters being some what unmemorable the semi's were certainly exciting and genuinely interesting. The first saw Gavern taking a majority decision over Toney (76-9-3-2, 46) in a bout that featured more than it's share of entertainment with the third round in particular being great fun. The second saw arguably the fight of the night with both Sprott and Minto going at it for the 3 rounds. Unfortunately for Minto (38-7, 24) it was he who came up short losing a close decision.
This left us with a final of Sprott against Gavern (25-16-4, 11), who had been sending the crowd into fits of "wooo", a la professional wrestler Ric "The Nature Boy" Flair. Unfortunate the final failed to live up to the excitement of the semi-finals as Gavern suffered an elbow injury that really troubled him in the final round of a bout that Sprott (40-21, 17) won with a safety first approach.
As well as the Prizefighter there was, as mentioned, a bout featuring Olympic gold medal winner Anthony Joshua (3-0, 3). Joshua, fighting over-weight Croatian Hrvoje Kisicek (5-7, 1), was given arguably the most pointless work out of his career so far. Although it's fine to do things slowly at this point in Joshua's career this really wasn't a match worth making. In all honest, Joshua will have had a more meaningful work out by getting out of bed. Kisicek, who had extended Hughie Fury 6 rounds just a few weeks ago looked dreadful here and the result, a second round TKO for Joshua, said more about Fury than it did about Joshua.
Across the Atlantic in the US we had yet more Heavyweight action.
Hard hitting American prospect Charles Martin (12-0-1, 10) surprisingly stopped the usually durable Joey Dawejko (8-3-2, 3) in the fourth round, after dropping him in the third. This was on a show that also featured an opening round blow out for Greek-born American Thanasis Michaloudis (6-0, 6) who swiftly despatched Robert Dunton (9-10-1, 6).