Ryan Rhodes is avoiding El Maachi; Kelly Brook is avoiding me

Look, it's the job of a promoter to promote. Nothing wrong with giving your man the big 'un.  But the latest from Yassine El Maachi is something else.  

The London-based Morroccan light-middleweight, holder of quite possibly the least prestigious belt in British boxing - the International Masters title - claims that Ryan Rhodes is avoiding him.  

This is presumably in the same type of way that Kelly Brook is avoiding me, i.e. she doesn't know who the hell I am and if she did she'd soon realise she had better company to keep.

Maachi's promoter is relative newcomer to the sport, Steve Goodwin. I don't know the chap but a few BoxRec News lads do and they all speak highly of him. Fair play, Goodwin appears to be trying to shake things up. He first did this by way of press releases offering 15k to anyone who could beat El Maachi. At least, that was the headline. When one scratched the surface, as I did, surprise, surprise, it wasn't as straightforward as it appeared. There were a lot of stipulations which had to be met.  

The spin very quickly became tiresome. It had worked to a certain extent as El Maachi was getting far more screen inches than a relative novice, then without even a noddy belt and four defeats on his log, deserved. (And therefore yes, I am aware of the irony that this is another contribution.) But fans of the more hardcore persuasion might very well have been turned off.

The latest paean to El Maachi from Camp Goodwin can't be entertained here in full but it includes, “I would love to have Ryan Rhodes to fight because he is the one everyone says is the best in England, you know. But I know this fight is never going to happen because he knows that I will beat him. Ryan Rhodes is running away from a lot of fighters.”  

I'm not really sure if Ryan Rhodes is running away from anyone but I sincerely doubt it. What I do know (not that I give a monkey's about the dubious ratings of any governing body) is that Rhodes is ranked number four with the WBC ahead of the likes of Antonio Margarito and Kermit Cintron.

What I also know is that Rhodes is coming towards the end of his career and no doubt trying to secure the big money fight he deserves. And he deserves it because he's a model pro, a former British and European champion who beat class act Jamie Moore in what was supposedly an eliminator for the WBC light-middleweight title in October 2009.

Now Rhodes sees Matthew Hatton get a completely unwarranted crack at that belt over in California on Saturday. And El Maachi feels he's hard done by? If he was in Rhodes' position now, he'd probably get the UN involved.  

Goodwin claims to have offered Anthony Small £75k to fight El Maachi when the Muslim radical was British champion. I can guarantee you this - there are plenty of better boxers than Small who would fill the opposite corner to El Maachi for a pay day like that. I'm no matchmaker but if that money is still on the table, I'll sort it out. For 10%.  

Oh, El Maachi, who is on a nice little run of ten unbeaten, boxes on Steve Goodwin's card at Goresbrook Leisure Centre, Dagenham, on March 19th. Despite his errant tongue, good luck to him and a special good luck to Steve Goodwin - his bumper cards offer excellent value to the small hall punters who like seeing a lot of bouts.

An eye-watering fourteen fights are expected to take place on the night.

Image courtesy Rio di Caro