Beyond Boxing

Conor Benn is having a conversion on the road to Damascus. He is now open to fighting in the UK again, after being steadfastly against it.

Maybe the reality of his options has dawned on him, and hopefully, the reality of a ban will also dawn on him too.

For the credibility for the sport, he must be punished, no matter how much he is loved by the public.

It is a crazy and maybe sad situation that the biggest star of the summer will be Chris Eubank Jr.

With no AJ, and increasingly, no Fury, this might be as good as it gets.

Does this fight end any different than the last one?

It's hard to see how.

It is always good when we get a superfight with box boxers in their prime.

We got that with Davis v Garcia. Boxing is the winner here and as much as we may want to criticise the ending, we need to remember that it's not us taking those shots.

There will be a lot of ex boxers with an opinion, but never got to this level. Don't be like them.

Let u rejoice that we got a fight when we were promised. It is so rare.

In some ways i feel for Eddie Hearn. He gets wheeled out to talk about a lot of things he doesn't understand, and often gets it wrong.

Then again, he brings it on himself.

This Conor Benn issue is a mess, and it is on his watch. No idea if it is him or his dad that are calling the shots, but everything backfired.

Instead of seeing this as a loss and demotion for Joyce, see it as Zhang adding himself into the heavyweight mix and making it interesting again. We want to see Zhang tested now, which add spice to the division

Why are the Americans so much better at producing stars than the Brits are?

Why is it that, every three years they unleash a new wave of talent, while we mine out veterans to within an inch of their lives?

How do we fix British Boxing?

Amir Khan is not innocent, but he did show how you handle a doping violation.

Conor Benn should learn from this.

Anthony Joshua was rightly criticised for his performance against Jermaine Franklin, who ended up enhancing his own name in the process, but are we being fair?

It depends on how you want to frame AJ's career. Tune in and see where this episode lands on this topic.

When Dave Coldwell loses faith in you, and he is Matchroom through and through, you know it is bad.

The performance was not a disaster, but it wasn’t the spectacular statement we were promised. Is that because Anthony Joshua is on the downside of his career?

The demands of his style on is body are massive and the demands on his mind and spirit from the public are even greater. Is it all catching up to Anthony Joshua now?

What a mad journey that has led Anthony Joshua and Jermaine Franklin to the O2 on April 1st.

Whatever you think of AJ, the man did beat the odds of life and now sits in a position where he can take or leave boxing.

The question is, after Saturday, which will he choose?