By Dean Parr
At the inaugural Goodwin Promotions show on the 13th of March, the 'Pocklington Rocket' Harry Matthews improved his record to 9-0 (2 early) by defeating the game, and now 5-4-4 (1 KO), Terry Carruthers by TKO right at the end of round five. Matthews was more than happy with his output.
“I'm very happy - it's all good,” enthused the York-based fighter. “I didn't expect to TKO him, but I showed that as the rounds go on I get stronger, and if someone's going to put up a pace like Carruthers did, then he better be prepared to keep that pace up, otherwise he's going to be dealing with someone that isn't going to stop.”
“In the first few rounds he surprised me,” admitted Matthews. “He just came at me like a bull in a china shop, and he walked me up in the second round and caught me with some decent shots. So I stepped up my game and knew I was going to have to be the best Harry Matthews, and to be honest, it made me perform because I knew he was game and there to win, it made me perform and show what I was all about and do what I've been training for.”
“Obviously,” he continued, “I was nervous as well, so the nerves gave me the energy to perform, and at the end of the fifth round, I found a nice little shot which hurt him, and I didn't really let him recover. He did well to stay up from the shots I was giving him so full credit to the lad.”
In the end, Matthews forced the referee, Ian John-Lewis, to intervene after 3:00 of the fifth session to stop Carruthers taking any more punishment. “It was great to stop someone like that,” asserted the Glenn Banks-trained prospect.
“He's the best lad I've fought as a pro, he was tough, game and undefeated in his last four fights. You can't argue with that, and I stopped him, and there's no better result than that. Rather than the referee letting him fight in the sixth round, and him coming out all dazed and getting a night in the hospital, the referee did a good job.”
Matthews also senses that he is finally coming into his own as a pro. He revealed, “I'm happy with my improvement because it's opened everybody's eyes now. The Duncan Cottier fight ruined me as well as the knockdown in my last fight [against Davey Jones] and they got people doubting me.
“Carruthers was better than both of them, as they were just journeymen. Journeymen are just spoilers though and can be hard to get motivated for. When you beat a journeyman, it's no big deal - everyone's beat a journeyman. However, when you beat a guy like this and you stop him, it's good. He's had some good wins, but he met Harry Matthews and I showed him.”
Also, Harry found it useful to watch tapes of his foe and work out a solid strategy before the contest. “I'd been studying him so I knew he was going to come at me, and to be honest, I didn't have to go looking for him,” divulged Matthews.
“I'm not bad at counter punching, and I noticed he was telegraphing his punches a lot, so when he was about to throw a big one, I knew just to avoid that shot, move, and then hit with the counter attack.”
“As the rounds went on”, he flowed, “I could sense he was tiring because he was putting everything into it, whereas I was just walking him down, planting my feet, chucking the odd jab out, and when he slowed down towards the end of the round, I'd start stepping my workrate up then. He was 100 miles per hour for the first bit of the round but he couldn't keep it up at the end of the day, and I thought that I was stronger than him, and he couldn't cope with the shots I was delivering to him.”
Even though Matthews hadn't fought for three months before this bout, there were no problems with regards to freshness, although he readily admits his performance was by no means perfect.
“There was no ring rust whatsoever,” stated the Northerner. “There were obviously little mistakes that I made, but you learn from every fight. I was happy with my performance, and I'm happy with myself that I've moved up a level now, and I just want to keep getting better and better and improving with every performance.”
Indeed, improvement is something that the 22-year-old should be striving for at this stage in his career, and with a higher class of opponent to be put in with him in the future, ‘The Pocklington Rocket' believes the best is yet to come out of him.
“The nerves will drive me on, and it's more motivation to train harder, and the reaction of the crowd the other night just spurred me on even more. It was brilliant and I thank everyone for that. The crowd was so supportive! To be honest, I was thinking about just having this fight, then fighting in October, but that fight has motivated me so much I want to be in the ring by 19th June. Hopefully Steve [Goodwin, promoter] will be able to get me on. Now though, I'm just going to have a couple of weeks out and have a meeting with him. Then, we'll see where we go from there,” he enthused.
Lee Noble is a fighter that Matthews has consistently called out in the past, and York's finest still wants him. Now, he has a solid idea of when he wants that fight to take place. “I want Lee Noble in York towards the end of the year,” said the highly touted middlweight.
“I think they're on about just getting me another steady six rounder. With Terry Carruthers it was a war, so I'm not really sure what they want me to do next, but I'm just going to go with what my trainer thinks I should do and go from there.”
To find out more about Matthews, and future Goodwin Promotions events, please visit http://www.goodwinpromotions.co.uk
