David Coldwell Praises Woodhouse For Gavin Outing

By Terence Dooley

Curtis Woodhouse confounded expectations on Saturday night when taking former World Amateur Champion Frankie Gavin the distance at Liverpool’s ECHO Arena.  Moreover, Woodhouse fought his way to a split decision loss despite pre-fight concerns that he would be taken apart by British boxing’s brightest hope.

Gavin was making the first defence of his WBO Inter-Continental welterweight title, he looked out of sorts, fleshy at the weight and had to dig in during the late going, producing the quality work required to take a close but clear decision.

Curtis, though, won a moral victory of sorts.  Gavin had predicted a whitewash, claiming that his superior boxing skills would wreak havoc come the night only for Curtis to match ‘Funtime’ jab for jab in the early going, sometimes out-jabbing the gifted 25-year-old. 

David Coldwell trained the Driffield brawler during the early part of his career; Glyn Rhodes has taken up the reins, leaving Coldwell in place in a managerial capacity.  The Sheffield boxing figure could barely contain his joy when summarizing Woodhouse’s performance.

“Frankie is a World Amateur Champion, one of the brightest prospects in world boxing, one of Frank Warren’s golden men now that James DeGale has got beat, and he only took a split decision in a fight that could go either way.  I’m delighted for Curtis,” smiled the former flyweight.

Frankie carried rounds eleven and twelve to put the seal on his 117-112, 116-113, 114-115 win.  There were no complaints from the Sheffield contingent, Woodhouse lost a lot of steam late in the fight, it was his first twelve rounder yet he gave every indication that he can come back for more.

“I wasn’t scoring it.  I thought we were close going into the last couple of rounds with Curtis tiring when he needed to put in on Frankie a little bit so I can’t argue looking at it like that,” admitted Coldwell as he summarized the scoring. 

“Frankie got a close decision but listen, Curtis took Frankie the distance and it was close.  The amount of shit Curtis took going into this was unbelievable, people saying he’d get hammered and this and that.  We got respect, which is all we wanted.  Glyn has done a great job for this fight.  I’ve spent time with Curtis over the years and as his manager I’m over the moon for him, it is great stuff.”

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