BOXING - Azzaoui takes a welcome break

Mohamed Azzaoui is taking a well-earned break from his recent punishing schedule and his manager, Anthony Warren, says the boxer's career has not been damaged by his first professional loss - in Wales, two weeks ago. If anything, the opposite is true.
Azzaoui returned to his birthplace in Mostaganem, Algeria, to visit his family after the loss to Welsh WBO Champion Enzo Maccarinelli at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and Warren said the boxer deserved the rest.
"I wouldn't say we are licking our wounds, rather we're taking a break after two trips around the world for fights in a three-week period," Warren said.
"The whole experience was a big learning curve for us, walking out and being booed by 50,000 people in Cardiff was certainly an experience - a once in a lifetime experience maybe - but the upside of that was that it was big exposure for Mohamed," he said.
The defeat had not stopped the offers for fights coming in, however, and when Azzaoui arrives back in New Zealand at the beginning of December his team will sit down and decide what to do next.
"The thing to realise is that losing the fight hasn't damaged Mohamed's ranking because he was fighting the champion, and despite the defeat he has remained (ranked) where he was," he said.
"The other advantage of our two fights in Europe is that hopefully Mohamed's future fights will be self-supporting now and that will give our sponsor a break," he said.
Mainfreight founder Bruce Plested has met most of Azzaoui's boxing bills for the past year but if offers like the Cardiff fight continue Azzaoui's future campaigns will be fought at a healthy profit.
"Now we've reached this level people ring you up and ask you to fight but offer you X amount of dollars. We've reached the top echelon - I would say we're at the bottom end of it but we're now ready to start working our way up," Warren said.
He said the fight against the WBO champion, taken at just a week's notice, was always going to be a tough ask after Azzaoui had peaked for his successful fight against Nicaraguan Henry Saenz just two weeks before that in Moscow.
"We went in there underdone and a little underpowered but we're not making excuses - we had no choice but to take the fight.
"When opportunity knocks you listen. There are very few chances in boxing to get a shot at a world title so if you get the chance you have to take it, plus of course the money was too good to turn down."
Warren would not put a figure on the purse the team earned for the fight but said it was considerable, after the Welshman's original opponent failed to be sanctioned by WBO officials.
His camp had to move fast to find an opponent and Azzaoui was chosen.
"They had to find another opponent quickly and so they rang us and asked, will you fight for X amount of dollars, and we said no, and they went up in lots of $25,000 until we agreed."
Warren said Azzaoui had done a good job to prepare in the time he had.
"He did himself proud but he took a blow to the kidney that dropped him like a sack and he never recovered," he said.
They protested to the referee but to no avail and Warren said there were no hard feelings.