2007 good, 2008 bad - but look on the bright side by James Slater May 13th 2008

How things can change rapidly in the boxing world. Only last year, during a boom time for British boxing in terms of how many world champions we had on these shores, we had seven men, no less, who held recognised titles at world level. Now, less than halfway into this year, we are down to just two. "The Pride of Wales" himself, Joe Calzaghe, currently the WBA, WBC and WBO boss at super-middleweight and "The Hayemaker," David Haye, the holder of the WBA, WBC and WBO titles at cruiserweight. And these titles look set to be vacated soon (Haye already has given up the WBC strap - Ed.) what with both men's recent successful moves (or plans to move in Haye's case) up in weight to another division. It really is quite amazing how quickly our world champions havebecome belt-less. Still, it's not all bad news. For Britain has only two reigning world champions if you go by the alphabet groups and these alone. For Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and David Haye still hold not only the distinction of being the best light-welterweight, super-middleweight/light-heavyweight and cruiserweight in the world, but also the very influential Ring magazine's world championships at the same weights. This is far more noteworthy, in the eyes of many, than the holding of an alphabet group's trinket. So things are not as bad as they may seem to the casual boxing fans who only consider a boxer as the best in the world if he holds one or more of the belts awarded by one of the four major sanctioning bodies. Real fight fans know better, however. Even more good news comes in the form of the superb Haye. "The Hayemaker" may not be holding any alphabet world titles in the near future due to his relinquishing his belts at cruiserweight so as to campaign up at heavyweight, but he has not been beaten and as such is still very much considered the best in the world at 200 pounds. Not only that, but the athletically gifted and big-punching Londoner looks set to make a massive impact in the big guys' weight class later this year - where he may well win a world title. So we are far from without our dominant fighters here in the UK, it's simply that last year we were almost spoilt, with men like Clinton Woods, Junior Witter and Gavin Rees either winning or holding onto world titles. Added to these three we also had Enzo Maccarinelli. At least his world title was taken away by a fellow Brit in Haye. It was sad to see Rees, Woods and then, at the weekend, Witter lose the world titles they'd worked so hard to capture, though. Witter's loss in particular was not one that was really seen coming. And in "The Hitter's" case the chances of reigning again are less than great. Quite simply, hardly anyone wanted much of anything to do with Witter when he had a world title, now that he doesn't who will go out of their way to fight him? Clinton Woods, too, may find it extremely hard becoming a world champion again - with age very likely being Clinton's biggest enemy. Gavin Rees has no such problem there, but truth be told he was pretty badly exposed by Andreas Kotelnik last time out. Maccarinelli may well pick up another belt now that Haye has left the cruiserweight ranks behind him, but the division is somewhat competitive right now. No, for continued dominance at world level we must look to Haye, Calzaghe and Hatton - coincidentally all currently the holders of a championship belt minted by "The Bible of Boxing."

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