Lightweight Joe Busy-Bee Beeden, England’s New Successor to Peter Buckley
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
At age 23, British lightweight Joe ‘Busy-Bee’ Beeden is called ‘busy-bee’ because he fights every month, or even every week. Work is plentiful, and the phone often rings. At two wins, 39 losses and one draw, with one career knockout, and three new fights on the table scheduled, Beeden’s career is on the move, if not upward.
Since March 2013, when the debuting Beeden lost a four round decision and got outboxed by 8-103 Sid Razak, Beedan has made his mark in Great Britainin the lightweight division, fighting four, six and eight rounders, usually going the distance, and usually getting outboxed by fighters with winning and losing records. He has won twice and drawn once, given the happenstance he can always get lucky once and awhile. Whether debuting fighter, winner or loser, Beeden can always find a way to lose.
Exceptions do occur, and Beeden, who has fought 23 unbeaten fighters and is a master of the dramatic dive, decided to beat, deck to the canvas and stop 5-5-3 Mike Robinson in third round in March 2013, the most experienced fighter on Beeden’s record without a losing record. Norwich lightweight prospect Zaiphan Morris, unbeaten in eight fights, had to settle for a 39-39 draw with Beeden in September 2015, where the annoyed and probably underpaid Beeden did not leave this future champion a place to hide in the ring.
In a battle of British ringers in October 2015, probably instigated when a winning prospect got dropped from the card and an opponent had to be found last minute, Busy-Bee Beeden outpointed 2-39-2 Qasim Hussein 40-36, winning every round while torturing the poor fellow.
Having lost a four round decision on July 16, 2016, to Birmingham’s 4-3 Paul Holt, Beeden will face; debuting Gavin Gwynne on July 23 in Wales; 6-2 Nottinghamshire fighter Nathan Kirk in Yorkshire on July 30; and 4-0-1 Birmingham super featherweight Ramzi Hamza in Northamptonshire on September 23. For it seems the more Beeden manages to lose, the more often the telephone will continue to ring.
Between 1989 and 2008, British super bantamweight ringer Professor Peter Buckley won 32 bouts, lost 256, and drew 12, knocking out eight opponents while getting stopped ten times, and never knocked out. While his 300 bout career remains the stuff of legend, young losers like Joe Beeden still aspire to be like him and be legendary losers while raking in the dough.
Buckley, incidentally, won his last bout by four round decision, because enthusiastically he wanted to go out a winner. Like Peter Buckley, Beeden will win, lose or draw depending upon the situation, which usually means getting well paid to lose. It isn’t stated in the contract, or even in person, but it is most certainly implied-and Beeden isn’t the only British fighter groomed specifically for this purpose.
Truth be told, Beeden is one of numerous British manufactured losers, who as long as they can pass the prefight physicals and get their meds cleared, can fight as often as they want in whatever division they want, and lose with dignity, if you can call it that. Once in great while, the ‘losers’ win when they are not supposed to, and that’s what makes it interesting and drives the bookies crazy.
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