British title preview - Barnes v Bami by Jordan Green Mar 13th 2008

Another writer, Jordan Green, joins the BBN team and kicks off with a preview of tomorrow night's British title dust up between David Barnes and Ted Bami... When the evergreen Colin Lynes relinquished his British light-welterweight title to facilitate a European mandatory defence against Italian challenger Gianluca Branco later on in the year, it presented a fantastic opportunity for two boxers, David Barnes and Ted Bami. Both boxers have held either European or British titles before so that experience should stand them in good stead for their Lonsdale opportunity which comes tomorrow night (Friday) on Barnes home patch at the GH Carnall Leisure Centre, Manchester. Bami is a former EBU title holder - he won the belt in 2006 by unanimous decision over Giuseppe Lauri. Barnes became the British welterweight champion when he beat Jimmy Vincent on points in the summer of 2003 in a somewhat controversial decision. Brixton-based, Zaire-born Bami is perhaps the slight favourite for the contest as he has arguably fought at a higher level and has improved since his early defeats. Barnes looked like he could go on to achieve bigger better things when by all accounts he looked impressive defending his title against James Hare in 2004, only for his career to take a backward step when he drew and lost in consecutive fights in 2005 (against Ali Nuumbembe and Joshua Okine respectively), so this is an important fight for him. Analysing both fighters CVs shows the pair have had almost the same amount of fights - Barnes 24, Bami 25; but what is more interesting is that both have got eleven knockouts to their name which is under fifty percent knockout ratio so a tight points decision is expected. Analysing the calibre of their opponents (which seems to be the theme in boxing these days), there does not seem to be much difference between them as they both have beaten good men. British welterweight champion Kevin McIntyre is perhaps the most notable name at the moment on David Barnes' record and he is one of those eleven opponents that Barnes has knocked out, and as for Bami he has fought against some good Europeans but perhaps the name on his log that people know is the Commonwealth light-middle champion Bradley Pryce. So taking all that information in and perhaps more the importantly the fighters ages (Barnes 27 and Bami 30), this could be described as somewhat of a crossroads fight for both boxers.  The loser, whomever it may be, will find it a very difficult road back.

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