George Liddard is pencilled in to follow his impressive win over Kieron Conway with a showcase outing at London's Copper Box in London.
Tony Sims, Liddard's trainer, admitted he made a calculated gamble in allowing the middleweight prospect to face Conway for the British title.
With an impressive 10th round win, Liddard improved to 13-0 (8 KOs) and caught the eye doing so, becoming the first man to stop Conway in 28 bouts.
“Where he’s only young, it was a bit of a risk taking that type of fight,” said Sims. “[Promoter] Eddie Hearn said you don’t have to take this right now but he’s got something about him, he’s a complete pro, he lives the life, he does everything by the book and I thought I’m going to put him in because if it doesn’t go right, it will still be a good experience for him. But he can punch, he can fight on the inside…”
Conway contended that he suffered bad hand damage before the end of the contest. Regardless, Liddard is the British and Commonwealth champion and he's set to fight again in March on a bill that will include promoter and trainer stablemates at heavyweight, Johnny Fisher, and fellow middleweight Jimmy Sains, probably at the Copper Box in London.
The Conway fight was at Bethnal Green’s York Hall, and it was a good night of fights. But Matchroom’s Essex and London contingent – that includes Connor Mitchell and Leli Bittigieg – has outgrown that venue. Liddard and Sains, who could both sell several hundred tickets, were restricted to about 150 each.
“It will have to be somewhere bigger,” Sims explained. “It was a good place to do a British title fight there but it wasn’t really big enough for both of them. You need the right kind of arena for that kind of night.”
