Home Boxing News Kevin Satchell at the Echo

Kevin Satchell at the Echo

Frank Warren promotes again at Liverpool’s Echo Arena on Saturday and features a host of local fighters in a show which is televised in the UK on BoxNation.  On paper this looks a mixed card, with the highlight being a European flyweight title fight and a small gem placed some way down the card.  Warren has named the show “The Magnificent Seven” in light of the seven star performers participating on the show.  Unfortunately, the seven making up their opposition are more akin to the ones made famous by Snow White – the dwarves!

Admittedly that is a slight exaggeration because there are two opponents on the card who carry a very serious threat indeed to the favourites.  One of these takes part in the main fight of the evening where Kevin Satchell is the Brit aiming for European glory.  His opponent is Valery Yanchy of Belarus, 23-3-2 (7), the defending champion and one of three fighters who have been playing pass the parcel with this title for the past few years.  Yanchy won the blue belt against eternal rival Andrea Sarritzu, in the latter’s home country in April, having previously drawn with the same opponent last October for the same title.  Yanchy has also contested this title twice with Romanian Silvio Olteanu, drawing and losing a split decision to Olteanu about three years ago.  Both of these contests took place in Yanchy’s adopted hometown of La Coruna in Spain, so one would assume that he probably clearly lost both fights.

The reality is that Yanchi is 37 years old, Sarritzu is 38 and Olteanu is 36.  At 26, Satchell, 12-0 (2), arrives on the European scene like a breath of fresh air and brings much needed new life to flyweight boxing in Europe.  Obviously, on paper, the age difference would appear to favour Kevin, particularly as flyweights are renowned to peak at a much younger age than their heavier counterparts in the sport.  Neither has Kevin been babied so far in his career.  He has been lucky in that although only having 12 fights, two of these have been against top quality domestic opposition in Luke Wilton and Iain Butcher, who have given him really hard fights, particularly Butcher who took him right to the wire.  This experience will come in very useful for Satch on Saturday, as Yanchy is another hard man and will almost certainly fight Kevin to the death.

A look at Yanchy’s record shows two of his three defeats coming inside the distance.  However, one of these was a broken nose stoppage back in 2006 and the other was a loss to the very good Belgian Carmelo Ballone for the European title when Yanchy was boxing up at bantamweight in 2008.  Unless Yanchy’s age suddenly catches up with him then, it looks like a distance fight, particularly with Satchell only having two stoppages on his card.  Look for this to be a gruelling hard-fought 12 rounder, with the local man, who holds all the cards, taking a clear points decision and becoming the first British holder of this title since Ulsterman Damaen Kelly held it in 2000.

Ellesmere Port super-flyweight Paul Butler, 16-0 (8), was to have faced world class South African Zolani Tete for the latter’s IBF belt on this card.  Unfortunately, the champion sustained a broken hand and had to withdraw from the contest.  What would have been a superb battle of the highest quality now turns into yet another marking time fight for Butler, as he faces Mexican, Ismael Garnica, 13-4-1 (5).  At an early point in the evening, one can guarantee that Garnica will be described as a “tough Mexican”, tough being the go-to word to describe non-threatening opponents from that part of the world.  On paper, Garnica has a reasonable record, which of course means absolutely nothing.  In reality, the combined record of his 13 victims is 4-11.  Garnica’s only fight outside of his local confines came in June when he travelled to Nicaragua to face local Herald Molina.  To give credit where it is due, Garnica put up a good show before going down on points.  He has, however, been stopped in two of his four losses and it seems inconceivable that he will give Butler many rounds on Saturday.

British light-middleweight champion Liam Smith gets a run-out against Hungarian Zoltan Sera.  Smith is perhaps rather premature when discussing his willingness to challenge for the major belts at this stage of his career.  He particularly fancies, he says, a crack at ageing new IBF boss Cornelius Bundrage.  Even were he to beat Bundrage though, he would then be faced with the prospect of defending that belt and there is a lot of strong opposition in the world’s top 20 at this weight.  Surely he would be better served going down the traditional route of winning the Lonsdale belt outright and then aiming for the European title before going for the big one.  None of which has anything to do with Saturday’s fight, other than that on winning he will qualify for a place in the WBA rankings, as one of their silly minor belts is on the line.  The opposition is dire.  Sera was destroyed in this country in December last year by the fragile and injury-prone Joey Selkirk.  On revisiting my review of that fight, I described Sera as inept.  It says a lot about the sport when such an opponent is brought back 10 months later to face a far better British fighter in Smith.  He should destroy Sera in three rounds.

Derry Mathews is talking WBA title fights.  His reasoning for this is that he fights for that organisation’s Continental belt on Saturday’s show against inexperienced domestic rival Adam Dingsdale, 11-1-1 (4), and a win will apparently bring with it a top 15 ranking with the WBA.  Thus promoters are rewarded for paying sanctioning fees and virtually buying their fighter a world ranking.  It is just another form of a “bung”.  After Mathews, 35-9-2 (19), was so clearly defeated by Ireland’s Stephen Ormond last December it just shows how unimportant performances and results inside the ropes are when it comes to the governing bodies.  Mathews did box exceptionally for the first eight rounds of his last fight, a points victory over Martin Gethin for the British title, before collapsing alarmingly in the fight’s last third.  He still won a comfortable decision but perhaps that late fade indicated warning signs of a lengthy and punishing career finally taking its toll.

Opponent Dingsdale has only stepped out of club show class once, when losing a clear decision to the aforementioned Ormond twelve months ago.  He used his height and reach advantages to good effect that night, although the two scores of 96-94 were too close, with Ormond’s busier style comfortably winning the day.  Adam will not have such physical advantages over Mathews and, really, is outmatched in every other department too by the veteran.  Unless Derry falls apart overnight, he should take a comfortable points victory.  Rather than looking to challenge Richar Abril though, this writer would prefer to see Mathews try to avenge his last two losses to Ormond and new British champion Terry Flanagan, who meet in November.  That would be more realistic for Derry at this stage of his career.

Streaking Welsh light-middleweight Liam Williams, 10-0-1 (5), gets his second outing at this arena, as he keeps busy with an eight-rounder against Czech Stepan Horvath.  If Liam can replicate the form he showed in his last fight, a sparkling stoppage victory over Ronnie Heffron in July, then the crowd is in for an absolute treat.  Williams looked like the real deal on that occasion, taking the former amateur star to pieces and catapulting himself into the British title picture.  Indeed, it may be that Frank Warren is looking to make a title match with champion Liam Smith in the near future.  Williams has stated that he is ready for this fight, which is another potential cracker.  Horvath, 12-4 (4), carries no threat to this vaunted match-up, having lost four of his last five fights, three inside the distance.  He does, however, normally fight at middleweight and travelled six rounds with Chris Eubank Jr. and eight rounds with Frank Buglione.  He might therefore be able to go the full eight rounds with Williams, whilst losing all of them.

The aforementioned Eubank Jr., 17-0 (12), also appears on the card, in a strangely timed match against German non-entity, Florian Wildenhof, 18-3 (8).  It seems baffling that Eubank sees fit to jeopardise the feverishly awaited crunch match with Billy Joe Saunders, set for November, by taking this meaningless fight.  There is no chance of Wildenhoff upsetting the applecart, but there is of course the potential for injury that any fighter faces in the ring.  Neither can this be described as a rust-shedder, as Eubank was in the ring as recently as July.  Eubank Jr. will win this as and when he pleases.  Wildenhof is terrible opposition, but is, on the whole, indicative of the sort of fighters Eubank has been in with so far in his career.  Is he pulling the wool over our collective eyes and fooling his advocates into believing in him, or is he as talented as his father?  All being well, we shall finally find out on 29 November in London.

On paper the best fight of the night should prove to be the outstanding match between Scouse Olympian and former British amateur team captain Thomas Stalker and the fast rising fellow southpaw Jack Catterall.  Both fighters carry a 9-0 record into the fight and because of Frank Warren’s influence with the WBO, that organisation’s European belt is on the line which, of course, brings with it a world ranking for the winner.  How ludicrous.  Forget about these ridiculous belts though as this fight cannot fail to be a cracker.  All of the risk in this one lies with Stalker.  He is the one with the glittering amateur career and he is the one who is now 30 years old.  It seems that Frank has decided to put him in this win or bust fight as if he cannot beat Catterall it would seem unlikely that he is going to make much progress in the sport.

For this writer, Stalker has failed to impress one bit as a professional.  His style appears far more suited to the amateur game and he does not seem to have the punch to earn the respect of seasoned professional boxers.  It must be said that he has struggled thus far.  With Catterall it is just the opposite.  He first caught the eye of most boxing fans when he appeared on BoxNation, putting in an outstanding display against Polish veteran Krzysztof Szot back in May.  He then went on to take the undefeated record of another Scouser, Nathan Brough, with a second round stoppage.  At 21, Jack appears to have a great future in the sport.  Has this fight come too soon for him though?  Will he be able to deal with the height, reach and southpaw stance of the far more experienced Stalker?

The fact that Eddie Hearn allowed Stalker to leave Matchroom and join his only domestic rival, Frank Warren, says it all.  Had Stalker had the “right stuff” there is no way that Eddie would have let him go.  That is the deciding factor therefore in me picking Catterall to win this clash.  He will get inside and do serious damage to Thomas with his excellent body attack and take a close-ish victory on points.

I must give a mention to another fighter who appears on the card.  Jazza Dickens is as good, if not better, than some of the fighters above him on the bill, but “The Magnificent Eight” does not quite ring true.  Jazza, 17-1 (5), returns to the ring for the first time in seven months and takes on one of those Georgians that I so often mention.  Of course there is no threat from this “opponent”, George Gachechiladze, but he did go into the sixth round with Willie Casey last month and hopefully he will be able to give Dickens some good rounds.  I say hopefully because it is always a pleasure to watch Dickens in action.  Of course, his lone defeat was to Kid Galahad in a splendid challenge for the British title last September and he is shortly due to challenge for that title again.  Surely he will take the belt next time.

@RachelAylett1