British Heavyweight Title, aka The Clubbing Bear

[Guest]

Just seen The Clubbing Bear (Matt Skelton) retain the British Heavyweight championship against Keith Long in the 11th round. Wow - I never knew you could score a knockdown by shoulder barging. Is that in the rule book?

After Keith gets up the ref stops it, despite the fact that Long may have won on points in the technical side of the sport.

It clearly wasn't any kind of KO, but team Skelton afterwards insist that it was "better than Danny Williams" (who was taken the distance by Long, but didn't have the advantage of holding him non-stop for ten rounds)

The 15-fight Skelton's next plan? He wants the winner of Klitschko-Williams. I can only assume they're handing out crack in the Skelton corner. Poor fight, poor stoppage. Poor Keith.

[Guest]

No one else saw it then?

[foremanfan]

Skelton is so slow with his punches I'm surprised that he can ko anyone they are more pushing punches than anything else

[theironone]

He is naturally very heavy handed even though his form is shocking, crap stoppage though and long did alot better than anticipated.
Skelton is a big strong brawler and thats about it really, i think though even his managment acknowledge that he is domestic level tops

[barryboy]

Yeah we could see Skelton in some good domestic scraps but that's about it, he's big & strong but technically he's terrible so he's gone about as far as he will go imo.

[PacKillsMorales]

was the fight being shown on sky???

i heard he knocked out sprott awhile back and that made me laugh because of the controversial way sprott won the belts

[Guest]

Yeah, he KOed Sprott (more of a TKO really) earlier in the year. Sprott was obviously a far superior boxer but when you've got a 17-18 stone guy constantly leaning on you for 12 rounds and not being penalised for it it does take something out of you.

So what would have happened last night if it had gone to points? Long wasn't schooling Skelton, not by a long shot, but when Skelton wasn't allowed to hold all he was doing was backing away. Plus, he had been penalised a point.

I'd watch it again and score it round by round but it was so tedious I just can't be bothered. Most boring fight of the year?

[PacKillsMorales]

so was it on sky??

[Brotherfromthehoods]

yeh watched the fite..it was joke..shudnt hve stopped it, long shud hve had the benefit of the doubt...skelton is a joke..no technical skill, he doesnt even kno how to jab

[Guest]

Yeah, sorry, it was on Sky Sports 1, and repeated this morning on 2. But you didn't miss anything.

Had it gone to the scorecards, what would they have said? (Esp. as it's only the ref's card in these bouts)