After successfully defending his European welterweight title against heir apparent Josh Kelly last week, Russia’s David Avanesyan (26-3-1, 14 KOs) checked in to see if his opponent was okay then embarked on a 20-hour trip back t...

When Terry Marsh beat Alessandro Scapecchi for the vacant European light-welterweight title he summed up his feelings in a single world. “I feel voluptuous,” he said in his typically enigmatic Marsh-esque fashion. When asked to sum up h...

For years, British boxing fans smugly said: “If one of our boys goes over to Italy or Germany, they have to score a knockout to earn a draw!” Incompetent officiating was something that happened overseas. This long-held view has been so ...

When Boxing Social arranged to catch up with former British and Commonwealth cruiserweight champion Mark Hobson (27-5-1, 14 KOs) the 44-year-old asked if he could field the call during his lunch hour. Hobson works as a b...

The science of boxing relies on the black magic of matchmaking. The late, great Dean Powell used to tell me that it was “A thankless task”. If you get it right, everyone else gets the credit, in the main. Get it wrong and you become par...

Lyndon Arthur (17-0, 12 KOs) has been calling for a domestic showdown with light-heavyweight rival Anthony Yarde (20-1, 19 KOs) for a few years and the 29-year-old gets his chance when the two clash at Church House in Westminster on a Fr...

You would have required 20-20 vision to predict the events of 2020 and, even if you did predict them, you wouldn’t believe your own prediction. It has been a completely and utterly mind-bending year.  A few boxers started to lose their s...

“Mandatories, bloody mandatories.” What a grating slog. It really encapsulates the frustration of a mandatory, doesn’t it? You wake up in the morning, you’ve recently beaten Shawn Porter away from home for the IBF welterweight worl...

Terry Dooley talks to the Director of ‘Lennox Lewis: The Untold Story’ Rick Lazes and lends his own, unique take on the heavyweight great’s career. A boxer’s career is hard to gauge in retrospect, especially in the age o...

When Zelfa Barrett (24-1, 15 KOs) finished Eric Donovan with a brutal left hook in the eighth round in August, many thought that the 27-year-old had produced a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card after losing the majority of rounds up t...

The Old Abbey Taphouse pub is situated on the Manchester Science Park. It is the last remaining part of the Greenheys estate and, prior to January of this year, I only knew about it for two reasons. The first is the fact that it used to ser...

Terry Dooley recalls his run-ins with favourite heavyweight contender Dereck Chisora and a memorable encounter with Emanuel Steward in his latest musings on boxing and the price of being a fan. The lack of fans at fights these days really c...

Terry Dooley draws parallels between the self-harming business model that originally sent HMV into administration and British boxing, where fight fans are being rinsed by multiple PPVs and substandard contests at a time when money is tight ...

When the first lockdown kicked in people that I spoke to within the trade told me it was a rare opportunity to grab a breather and a bit of space. Peter Fury was no different. Indeed, the hardest part for Fury was probably the fac...

Back in 2009, Terry Dooley spoke to former world title challenger Pat Barrett at length about his career. Barrett had recently resurfaced on the Manchester boxing scene and, over the course of time, had lost all the footage of his...

Back in 2009, Terry Dooley spoke to former world title challenger Pat Barrett at length about his career. Barrett had recently resurfaced on the Manchester boxing scene and, over the course of time, had lost all the footage of his fights ...

From the moment we met, I knew that retired former British and European light-welterweight champion Pat Barrett (37-4-1, 28 KOs) and I would get on like a house on fire. It was a typically rainy summer evening here in Manchester. ...

The word ‘talent’ initially referred to a unit of value then, later, a sum of money. It was coined in 4BC by the Romans, ‘Talentum’ and Greek, ‘Talanton’, for trading purposes. The term pops up in Matthew 25:14-30 when Jesus tel...

The Covid-19 virus means that we live in unprecedented times and we are seeing falling viewing figures across some sports as sporting events need crowd colour to survive and thrive on TV. Back in 2011, Sky TV made the decision to hand sole ...

Boxing has made its tentative return to our screens across various platforms in recent weeks. Frank Warren has hosted shows at the BT Studios. Scott Harrison made his return on a BIBA event. Fights have been taking place up and down America...

Scotland’s Scott Harrison (27-3-2, 15 KOs) fought for the first time since 2013 when beating Paul Peers (who was 0-2 when fighting with a BBBoC licence) in three rounds on Saturday night. The 140lbs contest took place at the Northern ...