"THE GREATEST"
MUHAMMAD ALI
Legends Roy Jones Jr, Marco Antonio Barrera and David Haye triple signed Hopkins vs Calzaghe press pack.
Price: £150
Roy Jones Jr. first burst upon the world following a shockingly controversial defeat in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Jones soundly defeat hometown favorite Si-Hun Park in the light middleweight final, the world was stunned when the South Korean boxer was given the gold medal by a score of 3-2. As one boxing expert moaned: "Those blind bums would have given Custer a gold medal after the Little Big Horn."
Undaunted, while Park took his tarnished gold medal and slipped into obscurity, Jones returned home to begin a brilliant professional campaign that would carry him to six world championships, including the most radiant of them all, the heavyweight title. Jones spent the better part of a decade regarded as the premier pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
Jones was Ring magazine's "Fighter of the Year" in 1994 and was voted the "Fighter of the Decade" in the 1990's by the Boxing Writers Association of America. He's the former IBF middleweight champion, IBF super middleweight world champion and former undisputed light heavyweight champion. He made 11 successful defenses in unifying the 175-pound division before moving up to heavyweight to fight John Ruiz. On March 1, 2002, Jones became the first former middleweight champion to win the world heavyweight crown in over 100 years.
Marco Antonio Barrera Tapia (born January 17, 1974 in Mexico City). A four time world champion in three different weight classes; he is a former world champion at WBO Super Bantamweight (122 lb), IBO / WBC Featherweight (126 lb), WBC Super Featherweight (130 lb) and IBF Junior Lightweight (130 lb) divisions. He ranks number 43 on ESPN's 50 Greatest Boxers Of All Time ahead of Pernell Whitaker, Carlos Monzon, Roy Jones Jr., Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Erik Morales, and Mike Tyson. As an amateur, Barrera had a record of 56-4 and was a five-time Mexican national champion.
Barrera was 15 years old when he defeated David Felix by a knockout in round two on November 22, 1989. The victory marked the beginning of a 43 fight win streak. In 1990, Barrera had seven fights, including his first rise in quality opposition, when he defeated veteran Iván Salazar, by a decision in eight rounds. In 1991, he had seven more fights, defeating fighters Abel Hinojosa, Javier Díaz and others. Barrera began 1992 by winning his first professional title, defeating Justino Suárez by a decision in twelve rounds to win the Mexican national Super Flyweight championship. He retained the title three times before the end of the year which helped improved his ranking in the Super Flyweight division. He defeated Abner Barajas by a decision in ten rounds, and Angel Rosario by a knockout in six rounds. In 1993, Barrera had six bouts, winning each. He defeated Salazar in a rematch and retained his title against Noe Santillana and among others.
By 1994, Barrera was attending University to become a lawyer and also continued his boxing career. On April 13, he defeated future champion Carlos Salazar by a ten round decision in Argentina. He also defeated former world champion Eddie Cook before the end of the year. Barrera began 1995 by fighting for a world title. In March 31, he became the WBO world Super Bantamweight champion by defeating Puerto Rican boxer Daniel Cobrita Jiménez by a decision in twelve rounds at Anaheim, California. By this time, many boxing journalist were calling Barrera "Mexico's next Julio César Chávez." He made four defences before the year was over, including a two round knockout win against future champion Frank Toledo, a first round knockout win over Maui Díaz and a twelve round decision win over another future champion Agapito Sánchez. On February 6, 1996, he fought on the first installment of HBO Boxing's spin-off series "HBO Boxing After Dark". He was knockdown by former champion Kennedy McKinney, but he recovered off the floor to knockdown McKinney five times and retain the title by a knockout in round twelve. After the McKinney fight, he defeated former world champions Jesse Benavides and Orlando Fernandez before suffering his first loss and losing his title to American boxer Junior Jones, by a disqualification in round five. Barrera was knockdown in round five by what appeared to be a punch by Jones, he was declared the loser by disqualification and not by knockout because his managers climbed onto the ring to stop the fight.
In April 18, 1997, he was given a chance to retain his title, facing Jones in a rematch in Las Vegas. Barrera was defeated by a unanimous decision and retired from boxing.
Barrera announced a comeback in 1998, and he started off by defeating Angel Rosario by a knockout in round five. After two more wins, he was given another opportunity to fight for a world title by the WBO. On October 31, he became two time world Featherweight champion by defeating Richie Wenton by a knockout in three rounds, winning the WBO's vacant title.
In 1999, he had two title defences and then he ran in to controversy. On December 18, he defeated César Najera in four rounds at California. But upon finding out that Najera had a losing record and was part of Barrera's team, the California State Athletic Commission decided to rule the fight a no contest bout.
In March 2000, Barrera was defeated in twelve rounds by WBC's world Super Bantamweight champion Erik Morales, to a split decision.
Barrera defended his Super Bantamweight title three times, defeating Luiz Freitas by a knockout in round one, former world champion Jesús Salud in six rounds, and he also scored a win over José Luis Valbuena.
In 2001, Barrera moved up in weight division. In April 7, he handed British boxer Naseem Hamed his first and only loss for the WBO Featherweight title by a twelve-round decision. On September 8, 2001, he defeated former champion Enrique Sanchez. In June 22, 2002 Barrera defeated Morales in a rematch, for the WBC Featherweight title, winning by unanimous decision. In November 7, he also defeated former five-time world champion Johnny Tapia by a 12 round unanimous decision. Barrera got his 60th career fight on April 12, 2003, defeating former world champion Kevin Kelley by a knockout in round four to retain the Ring Magazine's world Featherweight title.
In November 7, 2003, Barrera was defeated by Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao in an eleven round knockout at San Antonio, Texas.
In June 19, 2004, Barrera defeated former two time world Bantamweight champion Paulie Ayala in Los Angeles. Barrera won the fight by a ten round knockout against Ayala. On November 27, he fought Morales for the third time. Barrera became a three time division world champion by defeating Morales in a majority decision.
On April 9, 2005, Barrera retained the WBC Super Featherweight title with a second round knockout against Mzonke Fana in El Paso, Texas, this win also marked Barrera's 60th career win.
On September 17 of the same year, he unified his WBC Super Featherweight title with the IBF World Junior Lightweight title version by defeating the IBF world champion Robbie Peden by a twelve round unanimous decision, in Las Vegas.
In May 20, 2006, Barrera defended his title against American boxer Rocky Juárez with what was announced immediately after the fight as a twelve-round draw, which the judges scored 115-113, 113-115, and 114-114. However, tabulation errors were found in the judges' scorecards, leading to a final score of 115-114, 114-115, and 115-114, a split decision in favor of Barerra. He fought Juárez in a rematch bout in September 16, this time Barrera won by a unanimous decision with scores of (117-111, 115-113, 115-113).
On March 17, 2007 Barrera lost his WBC Super Featherweight title to fellow Mexican boxer Juan Manuel Márquez by unanimous decision. Though Barrera claimed that the judges and referee were wrong, because he knocked down Márquez in the seventh round and the referee ruled it a slip.
Barrera fought Pacquiao in a rematch bout for the WBC International Super Featherweight title on October 6, 2007 in Las Vegas. Barrera was defeated by a unanimous decision with scores of 118-109, 118-109, 115-112. After the match, Barrera expressed his desire to retire from boxing, however no official confirmation has been made. On February 13, 2008, Barrera announced to the media that he would fight the winner of the Márquez vs. Pacquiao bout on March 15. The winner of this turned out to be Pacquiao, in a highly disputed split decision.
In 1999, Haye participated at the world amateur championships in Houston, Texas, USA at light-heavyweight but was defeated by American Michael Simms early in the contest. At the 2001 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK he fought in the heavyweight 201 lbs division where he beat world class Sebastian Köber to reach the final where he gave Cuban superstar Odlanier Solís a standing eight before getting stopped by TKO (round 3) and taking the silver medal.
Based in Bermondsey, London, England, Haye turned professional in December 2002, knocking out veteran Tony Booth in two rounds. In 2003 he won 7 fights, 2 of which were in the USA, and won all by knockouts. The most notable being a 4th round KO of The Congo's Lolenga Mock where Haye had to come off the floor to win, and a 1st round KO of Tony Dowling where he picked up the English title.
Haye's fights were regularly seen on the BBC and his popularity began to grow in 2004, when he dispatched the 39-year-old ex-World champion "King" Arthur Williams in three rounds. However a match with 40-year-old ex-WBO champion Carl Thompson for the lightly regarded IBO belt proved disastrous, as Haye appeared to punch himself out early and had to be saved by the towel in the fifth round.
Haye had bounced back by December 2005, defeating Alexander Gurov for the EBU European title in just 45 seconds. In January 2006, Haye signed a three year contract with former Lennox Lewis promoter Frank Maloney in order to further his world title ambitions. He retained his European title with defences against Lasse Johansen (TKO8), Ismail Abdoul (W12), and Giacobbe Fragomeni (TKO9).
Haye's cameo at heavyweight resulted in an emphatic KO win over WBC world-ranked No.11 Pole Tomasz Bonin. Haye knocked Bonin down three times in the opening round before the referee called a halt to proceedings for Bonin's safety. Before this bout Bonin had only been stopped once in a defeat to Audley Harrison back in June 2004. His training camp is based in Kyrenia, in the de facto recognized state The Turkish Repubic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and has worn the flag on his shorts alongside the St Georges Cross and the Union Jack.
He challenged Jean-Marc Mormeck on November 10, 2007 for the WBA and WBC cruiserweight titles. Haye defeated Mormeck with a TKO in the 7th round. He was knocked down in the 4th but came back and won after the referee stopped as Mormeck was deemed to be unfit to continue. The victory confirmed Haye's arrival as a genuine world class fighter because Mormeck was ranked number one by the ring magazine. This was expected to be Haye's last fight in the cruiserweight division, win or lose. Haye himself has admitted that he 'struggles to make weight' and feels that he can only box at '70 or 80 per cent' his potential as a cruiserweight. David Haye and Enzo Maccarinelli met in an all-British world cruiserweight title fight in the early hours of March 9, 2008. British trade paper Boxing News produced a pullout special on the match. Widely billed as the biggest all British bout since Chris Eubank met Nigel Benn, few pundits could decide who would walk away the victor. As both fighters are massive punchers with excellent KO records a short fight was predicted. Haye won the match in the 2nd round with a stunning technical knock-out.
Haye immediately announced the victory as his last fight at cruiserweight. He will move up to heavyweight and declared live on Setanta, following his victory, that he will retire on the year of his 31st birthday declaring that he will have 2 to 3 years of heavyweight domination.
His father was a national karate expert. He has one brother, James, and a sister, Louisa Frisby, owner and founder of Louisa's Smoothies. David attended Snowfields Primary School in London, SE1, and Bacon's Technical College, London SE16. He began his boxing career training at Fitzroy Lodge in Lambeth under the tutelage of Mick Carney. David was also a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.