Ohara Davies - Good to see a trier get his reward...

Whatever you think of Davies getting a shot at the title by beating a much fancied Ritson.....You have to respect a kid who has gone about his career perhaps inadvertently the hard way....

Fighting decent and world class guys generally in their own backyards......Matthews...Farrell...Ritson in Liverpool and Newcastle and taking on two future champs in Catterall....Taylor...The latter in a fierce Glasgow cauldron....

His record is starting to resemble fighters of christmas past with the ups and downs on the way to the title.....Very few old fighters were unbeaten when they fought for the crown..

The kid was a bit silly in the old days but how much was it his Promoter trying to start controversy ???.....After all Hearn paid Chisora's fine for the chair throwing which added Tens of thousands to the pot..

Whatever.....He seems more mature nowadays and deserves his shot and it's good to see......

Hope he wins some pie !!!.....

I wonder if Davies might have a bit of the James Degale about him - believed his own hype as an early prospect, wound up a lot of fans with his big mouth, got brought back down to Earth by a fellow domestic prospect who he then had to watch go on to much bigger things which he'd planned for himself, and had plenty of people enjoying his setbacks too.

Degale eventually refocussed himself, learned a bit of humility, got a few decent results / performances at world level and won over a fair number of critics in his 2014-16 run (slipped back into some bad habits again before he retired, mind you!) and maybe Davies is on a similar path now, hopefully without Chunky's late-career relapse.

Hard to see him winning a world title any time soon as Light-Welter should still be in pretty good shape in the next couple of years or so; it already houses the two men who have beaten him along with Prograis and Lopez, and it seems like at least one of Garcia or Gervonta will be settling there soon, too. The likes of Zepeda and Ramirez are still genuine contenders and I wouldn't back Ohara against those guys yet, either.

But good luck to him, he says he's found a new appreciation and respect for the sport and with another few wins he'll at least be in the mix for a shot at one of those kind of names.

Ritson's had quite the fall from grace, mind you. I think he's an example of how the links to a prominent football club can create that buzz and emotional fanfare around a fighter even if their level isn't quite top drawer, because in this day and age the 'dream' is always a stadium fight at that club's home. Hatton was the first to really tap into that in the Sky / PPV era, and the likes of Bellew, Wood, Warrington, Mitchell, Brook etc. have all followed on his coat tails. I know for a fact that Froch was never a particuarly big Forest or football fan in general before he started to become a bit of a bigger name once Sky got hold of him....Lo and behold, he has the Forest badge on his shorts for a few of his latter career fights and talks of his 'dream' of fighting someone like Kessler at the City Ground.

It's only a couple of years ago that Ritson was being put forward as a potential opponent for Josh Taylor. Now he's had a couple of setbacks, I've noticed (even before the Davies loss) that basically nobody talks about him these days.

Chris how do you know Froch wasn't a big football fan? not a moan at you just wondered as i always though he was a big fan but quiet about it (who wouldn't be ;-P)

Derbymanc wrote:Chris how do you know Froch wasn't a big football fan? not a moan at you just wondered as i always though he was a big fan but quiet about it (who wouldn't be ;-P)

Haha, luckily I have enough class to rise above such jibes and not mention the tragic recent downfall of that other club just down the A52 from us.....

Froch gave one or two interviews back when he was at Commonwealth or fringe world class level in which he mentioned that he was more of a casual football fan, and in fact told someone I know who went on a few dates with him (before he stumbled across a certain Miss Cordingley) that it had been a while since he'd been to any matches. Said that outside of boxing the only other sport (or game before the 'It's not a sport!' brigade chime in!) he bothered with properly was snooker, which he played quite a lot in his spare time.

He was always a Forest fan to some extent, but no doubt he was either encouraged, or simply did it off his own back as he knew it would be a good commercial move, to bang the drum a bit more and talk up his love for the club as his profile grew.

Incidentally, should say that although his public persona didn't always translate this way, Froch was always a really good bloke to anyone who dealt with him locally and went out of his way to do bits and bobs for fans (like remembering a request to get a signed pair of gloves to my younger brother when he was still a kid, and then a couple of years later still remembering my brother's name and asking after him, how he was doing, if he was boxing etc.). For all his 'needy' or 'insecure' posturing (albeit he's more self-aware than people realise) there is a good guy underneath it.

You mean our emergence from the ashes ;-P (In all seriousness you've been looking okay this season, think Coops is the real deal for you).

That's a bool story you know, and makes sense. I also like how it does tie in to the emergence of the boxing football fan.

Always liked Froch, regardless of anything else think he's one of the better ones to come from us and other than the Wembley thing always struck me as a decent fella. But i give him a pass most of the time as he was overlooked for so long and who of us wouldn't brag we'd sold out Wembley :-)