Gary Cornish

Giant British heavyweights seem to be a thing now a days with the likes of David Price, Tyson Fury and Richard Towers all getting plenty of attention, though one name that often seems to be forgotten is the emerging Scottish fighter Gary Cornish. Stood at 6'7" Cornish is another giant from British and is yet another fighter who is intent on making his name in the heavyweight division.

Despite having only had 9 amateur bouts (winning them all, 6 by KO) Cornish, known as "The Highlander" has had the hype machine going crazy with his manager Tommy Gilmour believing Cornish could become the first Scottish Heavyweight world champion. Maybe that day will come one day though for now Cornish, with Gilmour behind him, is taking baby steps and slowly being shaped into the fighter that Gilmour wants him to be.

Cornish made his professional debut in April 2011 by stopping Preston based Heavyweight journeyman Howard Daley in 2 rounds. Cornish then followed up that impress victory by stopping Hastings Rasani in 4 rounds (due to a cut). Impressively just 5 months later Rasani would score a draw with former World title challenger Albert Sosnowski. In September of '11 Cornish would head the final bell for the first time as he scored a clear points victory over the tough Rolandas Cesna.

In Cornish's most recent fight (November 2011) he would rematch Hastings Rasani, this time in an 8 round bout. After dropping the Rasani twice in round 3 Cornish failed to stop the Zimbabwean though took a wide decision with the score of 80-71.

Tomorrow night (Saturday January 21st) Gary Cornish will face the busy Latvian Remigijus Ziausys on an under-card bout at the Liverpool Olympia. Ziausys' record reads a rather ugly 20-46-3 (10) though he has proven himself to be a durable fighter having only been stopped once (by former European Cruiserweight champion Alexander Frenkel). This is despite facing fighters including Dereck Chisora, Alexander Kotlobay, Robert Helenius, Mariusz Wach, Bogdan Dinu and Giacobbe Fragomeni. Whilst we all expect Cornish to win, a stoppage victory would really be impressive from the giant from Scotland who will tower some 9 inches above his Latvian opponent.

Whilst I've not found any footage of Gary "The Highlander" Cornish, we will hopefully see highlights of his fight with Ziausys on Sky TV on the undercard of David Price v John McDermott tomorrow.

Tyson Fury

British heavyweights have for a long time been a a running joke in the sport of boxing. Whilst a few have managed to make an impact in the last 100 years they have been few and far between with the likes of Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno, Henry Akinwande and David Haye being the few stand outs who have made it on the world stage. Sadly all of those are known almost as well for their failures as for their victories. Lennox being knocked sparked out Hasim Raham, David Haye flopping like a fish against Wladimir Klitschko, Frank Bruno being stopped by Mike Tyson and Henry Akinwande being DQ'd for hugging onto Lewis like his was his mother.

Tyson Fury (16-0, 11) however wants to change the view on British heavyweights almost single handed and is going about things in an impressive fashion so far. Fury, aged just 23 has already captured the British and Commonwealth titles and generally impressed time and time again proving that he's more than just hype.

Stood at 6'9 and with an 85" reach Fury has shown he has skills to go with his size and with wins against the likes of Scott Belshaw (TKO2), John McDermott (Points 10 and TKO 9) and Dereck Chisora (UD12) he already stands out as being above the run of the mill prospects. Whilst at times Fury has struggled (notably in the 2 McDermott fights) he has shown steady improvement and is now a more complete fighter than he's ever been. He showed a huge level of improvement when he defeated Chisora and last time out (against Nicolai Firtha) he showed an excellent jab as well as knowing what to do when he was hurt (after Firtha caught him with a beauty).

This coming Saturday Fury will face Canadian based Neven Pajkic (16-0, 5) who himself holds a number of solid wins (including a decision over Firtha, and wins over Jason Gavern, Grzegorz Kielsa, Raphael Butler and Johnnie White). A win over Pajkic would be the 4th time Fury has taken an opponents "0" (after Rich Power who was 12-0, Marcelo Luiz Nascimento who was 13-0 and Dereck Chisora who was 14-0) an impressive feat for a fighter with less than 20 fights.

Fury v Pajkic will be shown for free on Channel 5 in the UK so make sure to tune in to one of Britain's fastest rising boxing prospects.

Below is the fight between Fury and Firtha thanks to superboxmma5