Former champ Witter hopes to revive career in Mississauga

The folks from Hennessy Sports might be world wide players in boxing, promoting world champs like Carl Froch, but lately they've been hustling hard to breathe life into the local pro scene, even buying commercial time during last Sunday's Heat-Celtics game to hype this Saturday's card at the Hershey Centre.

Makes sense.

A card with so much local flavour needs a lot of local hype.

Orangeville's Logan Cotton McGuinness headlines his third straight Hershey Centre event, and the undercard features a welterweight showdown between Mississauga residents Samuel Vargas and Tebor Brosch.

But in addition to fighters trying to build a following in the 416/905, Hennessy has also infused this card with some star power, even if it's faded.

Saturday's undercard features England's Junior Witter, a former WBC champ at 140 who defended his title four times before losing to Timothy Bradley in May 2008. He hasn't fought since an eighth-round stoppage loss to Devon Alexander 18 months ago, but Saturday the 36-year-old starts the climb back to the top of the ranking, facing Toronto-based Romanian Victor Puiu.

Thursday afternoon I caught up with him at a media workout in Mississauga, and without ace videographer Randy Risling I had to fend for myself. So I filmed with the Canon point-n-shoot, fired up iMovie for the first time ever and put together this video on Junior Witter and the comeback that begins right here in the GTA.

 

Comments

[Mike N]

Witter isn't a youngster anymore - just shy of 37. He had a close match with Bradley but was getting schooled by Alexander before he retired. I don't know if he could still compete with these two. Is he fighting at welter because he's having trouble making weight? Gotta wish him well though.