Oakey Wants Revenge on Haymer
- Filed under: Peter Hamyer, Tony Oakey
- Date: Jan 22,2008
With less than two weeks to go before his first ever British title fight, London based light heavyweight Peter Haymer has been tearing through sparring partners at an alarming rate as he prepares for a rematch with reigning British champion Tony Oakey on a Frank Maloney promotion at York Hall on Friday, February 1, 2008. “Peter has been looking very good in training and I’m very confident that he’ll beat Oakey again,” said Haymer’s trainer/manager Chris Hall, a former amateur boxer who is also founder and director of the well respected London Boxing Academy. “It’s going to be either a very close fight or I think Peter might be able to stop him, but that’s a big task because Oakey’s never been stopped.”For Haymer to fulfill Hall’s prediction, the hard nosed St. Pancras native must make better use of his five inch height advantage as he was forcibly dragged into a bruising 12 rounds of trench warfare by the much shorter Oakey in June of 2005 and had to summon every ounce of energy to eke out a razor thin points verdict to retain his English title at the time.
Haymer, 17-4-1 (5), will also have to reverse his lack of momentum going into this contest as he has suffered defeats in his last two outings while Oakey, 24-2-1 (6), hasn’t lost a bout in all six of his appearances since the first Haymer clash, including a British title win against Steve Spartacus in May of last year.
But Hall feels that Haymer’s recent disappointments were circumstantial in nature and in one case, could even serve to spur his trainee on through what is sure to be a hotly contested British title challenge against a motivated champion.
“Peter improved immensely for a year and a half after the first Oakey fight but was going through personal issues that I think had a lot to do with his dreadful performance when he challenged for the Commonwealth title in 2006; he just wasn’t himself that night,” said the trainer, who won three national titles as an amateur boxer and has university degrees in Sports Science and Management.
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