By Frank Warren

Tonight, another Brit will be involved in a world title fight when James DeGale makes a first defence of his IBF super-middleweight title against Lucian Bute in Quebec. I happen to think this is a tougher job for DeGale than it may seem.

I know Bute has had a poor performances at the top level against Jean Pascal and of course, Carl Froch who blitzed him out in five rounds, but this is in Canada fighting in front of his home fans and I thought there were moments when DeGale won the title against Andre Dirrell that he looked vulnerable.

If Dirrell had shown a bit more ambition the result could have been different. Believe me, this is no foregone conclusion.

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Can Canelo tame the Triple G-Force?

It may have lacked the epic intensity of some of the previous fights involving both men, but I am sure BoxNation viewers will agree that last weekend’s encounter between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas was absorbing and extremely watchable, not least as the result poses what currently is boxing’s most intriguing question.

Does Alvarez have the guile to take on and beat the beast from the East,  Gennady Golovkin? There is no doubt he has the gumption.

“Give me the gloves, I’ll fight him now, he declared in the Mandalay Bay ring seconds after his hand was raised as the clear winner and new holder of the WBC middleweight belt that game old warhorse Cotto had sacrificed even before the bell over a financial dispute with the governing body. Spoken like a true Mexican!

Alvarez has two weeks before the he needs to commit finally to a decision but it seems his mind is already made up. He’ll take on Triple G, the world’s outstanding pound-for-pounder who has won his last 21 bouts by KO.

I thought Alvarez fought very well against Cotto. He was very calm, put his punches together intelligently, commanded the centre of the ring and waited for Cotto to come to him. His counter-punching was eye-catching – quite literally – and he’s a heavy hitter.

Cotto has been a great champion, but it was a classic case of a good big ‘un beating a good little ‘un and the advantage always seemed to be with the much younger man.

At 25 Alvarez is only going to get better, but whether he is yet good enough to beat the great Golovkin, well, I have my doubts. Alvarez might be the linear champion – for all that is worth – but Golovkin has more belts and, more importantly, the power to break down the extraordinarily solid Mexican.

Both can box and bang but the Kazakh seems to have the more devastating weaponry  in his armoury.

Oscar De La Hoya has announced that Canelo’s next two fights would take place in May and September of next year. ‘Cinco de Mayo’,  a celebration held on May 5 to commemorate the Mexican army’s victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1892 seems an ideal date if they can come to terms with Golovkin, who surely will be up for it. It would be massive in Mexico – or indeed anywhere.

It is a match-up both Andy Lee and Billy-Joe Saunders, who contest the WBO title in Manchester on December 19, will be scrutinising very carefully, because that’s what good fighters do with potential opponents.

Either would step up to the plate to meet the winner, though, as I’ve said before, if it’s Billy-Joe, as I hope and anticipate, I’d like to see him get a couple more big scalps under his belt first.

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Beeb such poor sports

In a week when the Government decides sport was important enough to award it an extra £29 million in Exchequer funding, it seems the BBC take a sharply different view.
They are cutting £35million from their TV rights budget, but in their infinite wisdom have still managed to scrape together a few bob to cover  what we are told is “the computer games world championship league of legends.” It will be shown over four days on BBC Three.

Hurrah! Can’t wait for that one. No doubt parents will be delighted that their kids will be stuck indoors watching this nonsense instead of being encouraged to go outside and play proper sport –which the Beeb hardly seem to bother about these days.

Instead they are offering the X-Box Factor. What a joke!

What is going on there? Like many I am tired of asking, for example, why the Beeb continues to ignore a sport like boxing with its burgeoning interest and success at both amateur and professional level.

There are now ten British world boxing champions but you can be certain none of them will come within sniffing distance of this year’s Sports Personality award because they have had little or no exposure on BBC screens. 

Time someone at the top of BBC’s ivory tower got their ears boxed, don’t you think?