Frankie Gavin had to overcome a second round knockdown to successfully defend his Commonwealth welterweight title on the undercard of Martin Ward’s world title attempt promoted by Frank Warren last night.
Sacky Shikukutu came into the ring with honest intentions of overthrowing the former Olympic entree and was the more busier fighter in the early rounds, scoring a knockdown in the second round by landing a left hand to the head, but Gavin also had to contend with the force of Shikukutu’s left shoulder which also made it’s way upstairs. Gavin was up immediately and resumed his in and out approach as he had been doing in the previous round.
As the fight wore on, Shikukutu continued to deliver a stern challenge as he occasionally scored with shots on the inside and a glancing eye catching right hand to the head in the fourth. However, Gavin began to get his combinations together and started to get into a rhythm even though he found himself on the end of Shikukutu’s jab occasionally and had to take shots to his body.
Round six saw the tide clearly turn for the first time as Gavin fought on the backfoot and threw accurate punches upstairs and down which slowed the Namibian and caused his workrate to drop considerably, most likely due to giving his best in the early part of the fight.
By the tenth round, Shikukutu was taking deep breaths but managed to hang in there even though exhaustion was settling in. But the Midlands champion was looking the boss at this point and managed to see out the fight by scoring clearly in the last two.
Where Gavin goes from here is anybody’s guess but it looked like he will need to step up his level at this point as he looked unmotivated for a while now and maybe a fight against the likes of Ceferino Rodriguez will bring out the best in him.