Saunders, Gavin and DeGale Impress in Newcastle
By Terence Dooley
Frank Warren’s two Olympians, Billy Joe Saunders and James DeGale, were featured on the undercard of Khan-Salita alongside World Amateur Championships medallist Frankie Gavin, with all three posting wins at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle on Saturday night.
First up was Billy Joe Saunders (161lb), the Hatfield boxer took on Sheffield’s Lee Noble (160½lb) over six-threes. Saunders, a Romany gypsy, boxed well behind his southpaw stance but never looked like scoring an eye-catching stoppage win over his 22-year-old opponent, who has only failed to hear the final bell once in his career, a third round TKO defeat to Grzegorz Proksa in March of this year.
Saunders, 20, used his right hand jab well in the early going before stepping in with left uppercuts to the body of Noble, who held a high, tight guard. Promoter Frank Warren later revealed that Saunders had damaged his hand as early as the second round, and had to go for x-rays in the aftermath of the fight. This could explain why Saunders failed to shine in this one. Although tidy, his boxing lacked the edged needed to close out his debut year in style.
For his part Noble, who came into this one off the back of a win over Ciaran Healy, kept things tight and tucked his chin into his chest when Saunders threatened. Dominic Ingle, who trains Noble, was warned by a BBBoC official for giving his charge too much advice during the rounds; John Ingle, there on a watching brief, took up the slack and he told Noble, now 11-13 (0), to throw more shots at Saunders during the final few rounds.
Billy worked well with his left hand to close out a 60-55 win on the scorecard of referee Mark Curry; however, this is Saunder’s second successive distance fight, Alex Spitko extended him in October, and Saunders will, perhaps, be happy to put these rounds into bank the before trying to get amongst the stoppages in 2010.
Frankie Gavin spent the first round of his contest with Samir Tergaoui sizing his French opponent up. Gavin, who is from Irish stock, had promised to take out his frustrations on Samir after Thierry Henry’s illegal handball had prevented Ireland from booking a World Cup finals place. ‘Funtime’ kept this promise early in round two, stabbing his opponent with southpaw jabs.
Tergaoui had his own successes, particularly with the right hand, which brought a swelling to Gavin’s left eye. Frankie later claimed that a clash of heads had caused him to mark up, this could be partly true; Samir, though, deserves a lot of credit for Frankie’s battered features, when the visitor did land the shots had plenty of steam on them. Gavin reciprocated in the fifth round, a right hook brought blood to the Frenchman’s nose.
Indeed, Frankie has looked the pick of Warren’s young stars, his nose was badly cut in his debut but he gritted it out to secure a stoppage win, he was excellent last time out versus Steve Saville and here in Newcastle he, again, had to come through a few shots in order to stamp his mark on the fight.
It looked to be going to the cards only for Gavin to turn things on their head in round six, when a sweet straight left hand put Samir over for a count. The 28-year-old clambered to his feet but was caught by another left, with a right hook thrown in for good measure. Referee Andrew Wright had seen enough; he jumped in and stopped the fight just as Samir was shaping up to throw a return shot. It was somewhat premature, especially given that there were only nine seconds left in the round.
Gavin doesn’t care, he moves to 5-0 (5) and has an exciting and, probably, successful career ahead of him; Samir drops to 10-6 (8), he bitterly protested the stoppage, and well he should.
With his teammates going 2-0 and Gavin having put on a show, Olympic middleweight gold medallist James DeGale was under pressure to go one better. However, his projected six-rounder with Welshman Nathan King was downgraded to a four rounder, at the request of Sky TV, moments before the contest was due to begin and James, 23, found it hard to get going over the four-threes distance.
Sure, London’s DeGale boxed nicely but he also lunged in a few times during the first round and the odd bump of heads led to a nosebleed for the Olympian. King gave things a go early in the second; lumping home a right hook to the body, only for DeGale to ramp up his output late in the round.
However, James, who has impressed in his last two outings, cuffed with his shots in this one, his boxing was reminiscent of his debut appearance, when Vepkhia Tchilaia took him the distance.
Indeed, James did not get going until the closing moments of the contest, when he hurt King with a straight left hand down the pipe, it was too little too late and come the final bell referee Mark Curry scored it 40-37 in DeGale’s favour. DeGale is now 5-0 (3); King falls to 12-15 (1).
With all this said, James, in terms of his boxing and public perception, has come on the most over the past year, he was jeered on his debut for playing around too much and cuffing his punches. Since then, his punching technique has steadily improved and the public are getting behind ‘Chunky’.
Still, when one of the assembled journalists lavished praise on James’ display, claiming that it was the best of his fledgling career, DeGale disagreed with the statement. “No, I’d say my last one was,” he admitted.
“This was a tough, tough operator who has been in with the likes of Kenny Anderson, who he should have beaten, and he’s been in with the likes of Quigley and Dodson. He used his head a bit in the first round, which caused a bit of a bleed, but I think I handled him,” claimed DeGale, who rises to 5-0 (3).
“It was a different type of opponent, tough and durable and he’s been around, and held his own with the likes of Quigley and Dodson. To be honest it was comfortable, if it were a six rounder I’d have taken him out off there. I was practising things in certain rounds and I felt good. I’m coming on - it is nice. It started a bit edgy but in the past few fights it has been coming on fantastic,” he enthused.
DeGale believes that he is destined for big things; he also told us that the fans are now onside. “This is just a stepping stone, all this domestic stuff, for where I’m going to go, because I’m going right to the top”, predicted DeGale, “and this was probably the best atmosphere that I’ve been to in my past five fights, it was great.”
Gavin came out off his contest sporting a shiner, the Brummie boxer put this down to a clash of heads in round one, and he also told us that his opponent had something to do with his bumps and bruises.
“In the first round, and the second, everything was going to plan but in the third there was a clash of heads and that knocked me off my gameplan a little bit,” claimed Gavin. “I was throwing single shots and looking for too much power but they told me in the corner to look for speed in the last round and I started to do that and put him down, he had gone a bit and wasn’t answering back like he had done at the beginning so the ref stepped in and stopped it. He was never going to win it,” declared ‘Funtime’.
He continued: “I wanted to be undefeated at the end of the year and that is what I’ve done. It is going to be hard and there is a long way to go but I’ve got the credentials to do it and there is no reason why I can’t get to where Amir is now.”
Gavin barely took a punch in his amateur career; he has had a rough entrance into the pro ranks but believes that this will hold him in good stead come the title fights. “I don’t think I ever got a black eye as an amateur,” revealed Gavin.
“So far I’ve had two marks in my pro fights and none of them have been by fists, they have been by head butts so when people start landing big punches on me, that’s when I’ll start to worry. I got caught with a few today, and he was a big puncher really with a lot of first round stoppages and KO’s, but once I got my gameplan going I did well, kept it nice and relaxed and it came.”
Frank Warren could barely contain his delight when talking about the potential shown by DeGale, Saunders and Gavin. “I thought all the boys boxed well,” he enthused. “I felt extremely sorry for James, because of TV the fight had to cut from six to four rounds. I know that, mentally, he was prepared for six because he’s been driving me mad for six round fights, and eight and ten rounders. So it is a bit of a shame. Had it been six rounds I’m quite confident he’d have stopped Nathan King.
“This young man here, Frankie Gavin, put in another cracking performance – I thought he looked exceptionally good. These young men have had a good year and have shown us what a great position British boxing is in.”
He continued: “They are excellent for the sport of boxing. I believe they’ll be champions next year, not world champions as they’ve only had five fights apiece, but they’ll be boxing ten and twelve rounds soon. Look at the Alan Minters and Kevin Finnigans, they fought four, eight and ten rounds, Area title fights and went twenty and thirty fights before they fought for a title. These guys these days have the conditioning and the fitness to go and do a ten rounder after sometimes nine, ten fights.”
Warren now has to concentrate on guiding his man to the title fights; he believes that as long as he does his job properly the three boxers will reach the top. “It is a great problem to have,” admitted Warren when asked how best to move the trio.
“It is about picking the right moment at the right time, you try to get it right most of the time, now and again you might make a mistake – and I don’t like making mistakes. When I’m looking after talent I like to show them what I’m capable of doing outside the ring for them, and I’m certainly capable of giving them the best potential they can get. As long as they focus on their careers, and don’t get distracted outside the ring, these guys are really going places.
“They’ve got good amateur pedigree. I want fellas in there who will make them think. They need the experience for when they are challenging guys for titles. They have been stepped up tonight and will be next time. No one had an easy job tonight - Amir made it look easy but they were all good, well-matched fights. I believe they are further forward than I expected them to be because of their great amateur pedigree.”
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