by Dafs117With Arthur Abraham exiting the division, it was hard to see how lineal middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik would find a credible opponent to share the same ring at 160 pounds. Especially after the grand plans of Top Rank were quickly scrapped and re-mapped following Bernard Hopkins’ magical performance. But he wasn’t dethroned, or stripped of his titles, he is still the champion of the world. But his plans have still changed dramatically.
British boxing froze midway through 2008 and somebody came along to press the F5 button that all stream-watchers have pressed countless times during the past 12 months. It gave British boxing, and the live stream, a refresh. We had a makeover, a transformation and many passing of torches.
Joe Calzaghe retired, and opened the door to Carl Froch. The first major passing of the torch in British boxing over the course of the year. Froch won the WBC Super Middleweight title in a scrap against Jean Pascal, before travelling to the States to stop Jermain Taylor late, and defending his title for the second time in the Super 6 Boxing Classic tournament, against Andre Dirrell, winning via close split decision.
Ricky Hatton’s retirement is inevitable. He might come back to be stopped by either Marquez or Cotto in a one sided affair, but he will leave a fan-base behind. Ricky Hatton passed his smouldering flame to King Amir Khan, who went 3-0 with wins over a one-eyed Marco Antonio Barrera, former paper champion Andreas Kotelnik and previously unbeaten Dimitry Salita.
Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico 
