Tony Sims was pleased that middleweight hope George Liddard was given a good fight by Tyler Denny.
Liddard made the first defense of his British and Commonwealth titles against Denny and was pushed in a close contest on March 21 that featured some excellent two-way exchanges.
Previously, Liddard had won the belts with a stoppage of Kieron Conway.
“It was good,” Sims, Liddard’s trainer, told BoxingScene.
“And, obviously, southpaws are a nightmare. I fucking hate them, to be honest. They’re hard to get ready for because the sparring’s not really available. It’s really hard to get good sparring. And it’s just always a new dimension to everything you do with them. It was a really good experience for George. And he had quite a bit of preparation for it as well, so it was a good experience for him. And I always thought it was going to be a hard fight because, apart from the Hamzah Sheeraz result of Tyler Denny, every fight he’s had has been like a tough duel with everybody. He’s really, really durable and he’s experienced. He’s quite smart and he can do the rounds as well.”
Denny had to have known that a damaging defeat would be costly. Instead, he remains a viable fighter and provided the 23-year-old Liddard, who fights out of Billericay, Essex, with important rounds as part of his ongoing education as he improved to 14-0 (8 KOs).
“I always thought it was going to be quite a decent fight,” Sims added. “But [it was] a fight that he needed to have at this stage of his career. And it wouldn’t have been no good to George whatsoever if he’d have walked through him. [Liddard] hurt him in the second round, but it wouldn’t have done George any good in the long run, really, that sort of result. So I thought he boxed well, really, and he well won the fight. Tyler Denny put up a good battle for him.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
