By Ian S Palmer
Former welterweight world title challenger Frankie Gavin will be taking on fellow Englishman Sam Eggington this Saturday, October 22nd for the vacant World Boxing Council International welterweight title at the Barclaycard Arena in their hometown of Birmingham. The 12-round bout can be seen live in the UK on Sky Sports 2. The southpaw Gavin last fought challenged Kell Brook for the IBF world title in May of last year, but was stopped in the sixth round. His last fight was a sixth-round stoppage over Igo Gogosevic in July. Eggington lost his British and Commonwealth titles to Bradley Skeete by 12-round unanimous decision in March and then beat Daza Usher by first-round stoppage in July.
The 31-year-old Gavin enters the ring with a record of 23-2 along with 14 Kos while the 23-year-old Eggington is 18-3 with 10 Kos to his name. Gavin is a good technical boxer, but lacks serious power. This will be a big bout for Eggington as he was supposedly lined up to meet WBC Welterweight champ Danny Garcia, but that opportunity more or less flew out the window when he was beaten by Skeete in March. In fact, Skeete is a common opponent of Gavin and Eggington’s as Gavin beat him by a 12 round unanimous decision back in 2014. This is also a huge bout for Gavin as he won’t get another title shot if he can’t beat a domestic opponent such as Eggington.
Gavin has been beaten just twice since turning pro with his other loss coming at the hands of Leonard Bundu in August of 2014. He’s been quite busy lately and won three straight fights against the likes of Mate Hornyak, Skeete and Bogdan Mitic until running into Brook. Gavin is 5-fee-10-inches tall with an unlisted reach. He turned pro in 2009 and has beaten the likes of Junior Witter, Denton Vassell, and Bradley Pryce, He’s fought 176 rounds as a pro and has a current knockout ratio of 56 per cent.
Eggington has a slight one-inch height advantage as he’s 5-feet-11-inches tall, but his reach is also unlisted. He has 112 rounds under his belt since turning pro in 2012 and his knockout ratio stands at 48 per cent. As well as losing to Skeete, he’s dropped a three-round unanimous decision to Johnny Coyle in 2014 and a unanimous three-round decision to Dale Evans the year before. His biggest win was an eight-round stoppage over Denton Vassell in 2014.
Prediction…
This is basically a good British domestic-level bout between two boxers who don’t have a lot of experience on the world stage, other than Gavin’s loss to Kell Brook. Eggington has youth on his side, but Gavin has more experience and has faced tougher opponents. Based on this, Gavin should win the bout unless Brook took everything out of him with last year’s knockout. Remember, this bout is for Birmingham bragging rights, so it has the potential to be a barn-burner and no outcome should come as a surprise.
