Michael Hunter vs Eli Frankham: A Strange Match-Up at a Storied Venue

Prominent American heavyweight Michael Hunter returns to the ring on Friday, Dec. 5, at London’s storied York Hall. Hunter is matched against Eli Frankham.

Hunter, ranked #7 by the WBC and #9 by the WBA, is 22-1-2 (17 KOs) per boxrec. Frankham is 3-0 (0).

Both records are incomplete.

Omitted from Michael Hunter’s ledger is an April 14, 2014 bout in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, against Artem Suslenkov, a 29-year-old Russian making his professional debut. Hunter lost every round of the 8-round contest. Also, for whatever it’s worth, Hunter’s record logically omits his 11 one-round fights for Team Combat League which were spaced across seven events in 2023. Hunter finished 10-1.

According to boxrec, Eli Frankham’s last fight took place in 2020 when he returned to the ring after an absence of almost seven years. However, veteran British scribe Tim Rickson has documented six more fights for Frankham between Dec. 14, 2024 and Nov. 1. Frankham, 32, won all six inside the distance, most recently a second-round stoppage of an opponent from Ghana, elevating his record to 9-0 (6 KOs). These six fights were sanctioned by a rogue organization, the British and Irish Boxing Authority, which explains why they are not acknowledged by boxrec. (The poster for Friday’s fight lists Frankham’s record as 8-0 which adds to the confusion.)

Michael Hunter

The subject of a 2019 profile in these pages, Michael Hunter is the son of the late Mike “The Bounty” Hunter who competed against some of the best heavyweights of his era in a career that ran from 1985 to 1996. A 2012 U.S. Olympian, Michael Hunter, now 37 years old, fought his first 13 fights as a cruiserweight, concluding with a title fight against reigning WBO 200-pound champion Oleksandr Usyk who saddled Hunter with his first (and officially his only) defeat, winning a unanimous decision. As a heavyweight, Hunter’s signature win is a 10^th-round stoppage of previously undefeated Martin Bakole. That match, on Oct. 13, 2018, was at York Hall. (Hunter had fought twice in London as an amateur, losing a split decision to Tyson Fury in a 4-round match and a 3-round decision to Artur Beterbiev in the second round of the 2012 Summer Games.)

Hunter’s career has sputtered in recent years. Twice he walked away from matches with WBA “regular” champion Kubrat Pulev. A bout with Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller also fell out. He did himself no favors with lackluster efforts, notably a drab 2021 match with unexceptional Jerry Forrest that was ruled a draw. His last documented fight was in Tlaquepaque, Mexico, and no one paid it any heed.

Eli Frankham

Eli Frankham is an Irish Traveler, an official ethnic group in the United Kingdom. His clan has produced a long line of prizefighters. Eli’s father Eli Frankham Sr. was a bare-knuckle fighter and his cousin Gypsy Johnny Frankham was a British light heavyweight champion. Two of Eli’s nephews, middleweight Joshua Franklin (currently 11-0) and lightweight Charles “Boom Boom” Franklin (8-0) are active professional boxers.

Irish Travelers are disproportionately represented among the ranks of British boxers and also disproportionately represented among those who have run afoul of the law. Tyson Fury’s colorful father “Gypsy” John Fury, a heavyweight who fought the likes of Henry Akinwande, famously served four years in prison after gouging a man’s eye out during a fracas at a car auction. Eli Frankham Jr’s off-and-on career has been disrupted by prison stints, most recently following an arrest for possessing a firearm which, according to a story in Frankham’s hometown newspaper, the Wisbech Standard, was a shotgun disguised as an antique walking stick which Frankham claimed belonged to his grandmother.

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The architect of Friday’s fight is William Storey, an eccentric entrepreneur who will use the event as a platform to promote his company, the Rich Energy Company, the manufacturer of an energy drink that is similar to Red Bull. The fight, by all accounts, will be as competitive as Michael Hunter chooses to make it, but planting it at York Hall gives the contest a sheen that it wouldn’t have at another small venue.

York Hall

York Hall, often referenced as the spiritual home of British boxing, is in Bethnal Green, an area of East London that throughout history has harbored a high percentage of immigrants. Originally a public bath with laundry facilities, the facility was opened in 1929 by the Duke and Duchess of York at a time when the district was heavily populated by Eastern European Jews. The first fights there were amateur fights in the late 1940s after the main pool was boarded over and professional boxing took hold a decade later.

Many of Great Britain’s most revered fighters got their start at York Hall. “It would be far easier to name the notable fighters that have not fought [there],” wrote Jack Tanner in “The Independent.” With a capacity of 1,250 for boxing that includes a 280-seat balcony that looks directly over the ring, York Hall is a remnant of an earlier era, architecturally the British equivalent of Philadelphia’s fondly remembered Blue Horizon.

York Hall was saved from the wrecking ball in 2003 by community activists who prevented the building from being torn down by developers who planned to convert the space into apartments. Instead, York Hall was renovated into a community center, a combination natatorium, fitness center, and indoor arena for events of many kinds, but particularly boxing.

Among a certain segment of fight fans, this reporter included, a visit to York Hall is on the “bucket list.”

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