By Lee Collier
Boxing manager and promoter Steve Wood has had an important couple of weeks with three of his fighters defending their titles. Gary Davies and Tony Quigley defended their British titles and Jamie Moore defending his European belt in fight that doubled-up as a WBC title eliminator.
Things did not go to plan for Wood as all three of his fighters lost, Davies losing to Ian Napa on a majority decision, Quigley losing to Paul Smith on a split decision and Ryan Rhodes stopped Jamie Moore in the seventh round to leave all three champions looking to rebuild their careers.
Steve Wood spoke exclusively to BoxingScene.com to give his take on the last couple of weeks and what the future holds for VIP Promotions.
“I felt Gary Davies did enough as the champion to win, he didn’t lose the fight to Napa but he’s not got the belt anymore. He’ll have a comeback fight and when he wins that he will have a crack at Napa or maybe a Commonwealth Title. I’m confident if he faces Napa he’ll get the win next time,” said Woods.
“He will learn a little bit from the loss. I felt he showed Napa too much respect but Gary feels he did enough to win the fight. There’s a lot more he could have done to get the win, but next time he’ll beat Napa.”
Wood then moved onto the following Friday, to the Quigley/Smith fight, a largely scrappy affair, which was difficult to score.
“I felt that Tony Quigley under performed on the night,” admitted Woods, “but to me he still won the fight. Smith only won one of the first 10 rounds and the last 2 rounds, what I do accept is that in a lot of the rounds nothing much happened so they were difficult to score. Tony, like Gary, was the champion and I don’t feel either challenger did enough to take the belts.”
In the aftermath of the Quigley/Smith fight Smith’s promoter, Frank Warren, stated that there would be a rematch. Wood continued by stating that, “Frank did say there was going to be a rematch, and at the press conference afterwards he said there probably would be one so I wouldn’t hold my breath on it happening.
“Quigley should be coming down to Middleweight but while the Smith fight is out there we will go for that. If Frank doesn’t give us the rematch, we’ll have to work Tony into a mandatory position and hopefully Smith will still be the champion by then. The eliminator will most likely be against Tony Dodson so that’s the route we will take.”
Steve then turned his focus to his prize asset, Jamie Moore. Moore had been on the fringes of a world title shot at WBC champion Sergio Martinez yet took a dangerous and risky fight against fellow Brit Ryan Rhodes. Rhodes stopped Moore in great fashion leaving Moore facing a possible move up to the middleweight division.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Ryan Rhodes but it wasn’t the real Jamie Moore in the ring with him, he was running on half a tank,” stated Woods. “Jamie was winning the fight on points but when he ran out of gas he got stopped. It’s no excuse but he wasn’t there on the night, read into it what you want but Jamie will be fighting at Middleweight from now on.”
“We need to keep Jamie busy,” Wood said when talking about Moore’s future plans. “We need to try and get him into a World title position at middleweight. He is above British level even at middleweight, and the only reason he stayed at light middleweight was because he was so close to a world title. He’s been struggling for a while to make weight so he’ll go up a division and win a world title there.”
Wood feels that VIP Promotions are still in a good position, even after losing three titles in the last couple of weeks.
“VIP has the best young lads in the country bar none, and that includes Warren’s fighters and Hennessy’s. It’s not good losing three titles, especially after taking 13 years to get there but in 12 months’ time I am sure we will sit down and I’ll have 4 or 5 champions and others on the fringe. We are down but not out,” insisted Woods.
“I have quite a few fighters who are on the verge of a title fight. Kids such as Carl Dilks, Brett Flournoy, Jon Kays, Mark Moran, Stuart McFadyen, Brian Rose, Alex Matvienko, Rick Godding, Mike Robinson and we mustn’t forget Gary Sykes.
“I then have some top young prospects, such as Jack Arnfield, Trevor Crewe, Josh Warrington, Chad Gaynor, Terry Flannigan, Tyrone Nurse, Stephen Jennings, Kieran Farrell, Shayne Singleton and the one I consider the best of all the prospects in the country at the minute, Karl Place. The future looks good at VIP.”
