Jack Catterall Outpoints Diego Luque, Retains Fringe WBO Regional

By Elliot Foster

Jack Catterall will go into the new year in the hope that he can get a marquee fight.

The Chorley super-lightweight successfully retained his WBO Inter-Continental crown, exclusively live on BoxNation, at the Lagoon Leisure Centre in Paisley, Scotland.

Catterall, 23, is now 17-0 with nine early after having his arm raised against Diego Gonzalo Luque of Argentina, as part of the undercard to Billy Joe Saunders’ first WBO middleweight title defence against Russia’s Artur Akavov.

It was a lacklustre showing from Catterall who, although he is dominating the majority of proceedings in most of his fights, has yet to really build on the emphatic victories over Nathan Brough and Thomas Stalker earlier on his career.

His new trainer, H’roon Headley, was, shall we say, less than impressed by his charge, despite him romping home to a decision by cards of 100-89, 99-91 and 100-90.

Catterall admitted in the corner between rounds eight and nine that he had hurt his hand at some point during the fight, but that didn’t stop him rocking the tough import –– who was fighting for the first time out of his home land –– on to his heels early on.

However, ‘El Gato’, who recently signed a managerial deal with MGM Marbella, was unable to capitalise on the advantage but saw it out to remain undefeated.

He’ll be hoping for a fight with Tyrone Nurse, the British champion who signed with Catterall’s promoter Frank Warren earlier this week, in 2017 as he looks ahead to bigger and better things following the fifth defence of his fringe WBO crown which meant that he protected his lofty position of number five in the Boxing Organisation’s rankings.

In defeat, Luque slips to 20-3-1 with 10 early.