Heffron vs Bentley 2 headlines what should have been a huge night of boxing at the BT Sport Studios in Stratford on Friday the 13th November.
Covid Woes
Three fight’s on the undercard of Heffron Bentley II have been cancelled due to positive tests coming from the camps of Kaisy Khademi, Masood Abdulah and Michael Rambaletsa.
Due to the confirmed COVID cases, the scheduled and anticipiated bouts of Khademi v Ahmed, Abdulah v Dunn and Ramabletsa v Bourke have been cancelled as per the protocols dictate.
However, the rest of the scheduled fights are due to take place remain after negative tests in all of the relevant camps.
The Main Event
After the “controversial” draw back in September the heavily anticipated rematch between Mark Heffron and Denzel Bentley is set to happen this Friday.
The undefeated Bentley thought he’d done enough to win the fight telling BT Sport “I thought I’d won it, it was my first time doing 10 rounds and I fell asleep a little bit in the middle of the fight, and he managed to pick up the pace a little bit”.
Going into this fight he had won all his 13 fights with 11 of them being stoppages, so him not winning a fight was new to him. He later said, “I thought I landed the cleaner shots and moved when I needed to”.
Heffron was left frustrated with the result which is to spark up fireworks between the two when they meet up kicking off the Bonfire weekend. Post-fight he told BT Sport, “I 100% think I won that fight, the round he won was the round where he caught me. I outworked him in every round. He caught me with the odd jab, that was it. Let’s do this rematch”.
This championship fight for the vacant British Middleweight title is due to bring an absolute spectacle of an experience as fans labelled the first fight between the two as the highlight of all post-lockdown boxing with fans crying out for more. Which left all 3 judges scoring the fight 95-95 unable to separate the two.
The super bantamweight bout between upcoming undefeated, southern champion Chris Bourke and English champion Michael Ramabeltsa was dubbed a must-see fight with Ramabeltsa looking to give Bourke his first defeat in his professional career. Coming off a 3-fight winning streak defeating Ryan Walker, Joe Eko and Indi Sangha, all of whom he handed their first defeats to. Unfortunately, fans will have to wait to see these two in the ring, however nothing has been confirmed.
The South London Boxer was hopeful of continuing his dominance by defeating Ramabeltsa giving him a 9-fight winning streak.
The IBF and WBO titles were scheduled to be the line as Ijaz Ahmed was looking to defend his IBF title against Kaisy Khademi’s WBO title in a winner takes all bout. The Afghani born boxer Khademi was hoping to continue his undefeated run adding the IBF title to his locker. Khademi is on a hot run of form with his last fight ending in a decision in favor of himself. Again, this fight has been cancelled due to a positive COVID test coming from the camp of Kaisy Khademi.
Just A Reality Star?
One fight that is still going to proceed is Tommy Fury and after gaining a lot of success on Love Island he’ll be looking to prove himself to the general public that he is serious as a professional boxer.
He told Manchester Evening News that “I’m not interested in fighting for fame or for money” he also said, “I’m interested in becoming world champion”.
This shows that the 21-year-old hopes to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Tommy is currently undefeated with 3 wins to his name with his last fight ending in a TKO against Przemyslaw Binienda back in December 2019.
The Love Island star will be looking to prove his brother wrong for when Tyson said, “Nah it won’t be a good idea that, you’ll mess up what you’re doing in your career, you’re on a roll, keep with the boxing.”
This was in response to Tommy going into the Love Island villa. Tyson later retracted the statement saying that it can only enhance his career by getting more people to know him. Even though the statement was retracted Tommy will still have the same thoughts of wanting to distance the reality tv side to his professional boxing career. Tommy will be keen shake his ‘love island star’ persona and remain undefeated.
Frank Warren spoke to Boxing-social.com, referencing the three cancelled fights. “These are unprecedented times and it is a huge shame to lose three great fights. I’m obviously gutted for the boys who have worked hard for this, but I am pleased to see the excellent safety measures implemented by my team and the board are working so effectively. We wish those affected a speedy recovery”.
