Home Boxing News Jeff Fenech speaks about Brock Jarvis medical emergency, world title ambitions

Jeff Fenech speaks about Brock Jarvis medical emergency, world title ambitions

Brock Jarvis and trainer Jeff Fenech. Photo credit: Glenn Daniels

Jeff Fenech says his undefeated boxer Brock Jarvis 17-0 (15) has the skills to become world champion following his 10-round unanimous decision win over tough Filipino Ernesto Saulong 22-5-2 (9) on the Jeff Horn versus Michael Zerafa undercard last month.

The IBF number 15 super bantamweight defeated the former world title challenger at Bendigo Stadium in Bendigo, Australia on August 31 by scores of 100-90, 99-91 and 98-92.

The victory came after a medical scare in Thailand eight weeks earlier that almost resulted in the 21-year-old losing a testicle.

“Had he (Brock) waited an hour, he’d have lost one of them,” Fenech said to Fightnews.

“We were in Bangkok and he just jumped on the back of a motorbike and rushed to the hospital. As soon as he had his scans, he had to have emergency surgery otherwise he’d lose a testicle… maybe I should’ve let him lose it and he would’ve made weight easier.”

Jarvis remained in a Bangkok hospital for a few days before returning to Sydney to continue his training camp.

Fenech praised his charge for overcoming some rocky moments early in the contest to dominate much of the fight.

“He’s got such a strong mental capacity,” Fenech said. “For a kid of his age, he’s fighting well above his age and I’m just so proud of him. We’ve just signed with Dean Lonergan and really we couldn’t be happier.

“And look at it like this, with 10 seconds to go in the first round, he got rocked. Then got rocked again in the second. So he had to dig pretty deep.

“But the biggest thing – and this is when you know you’ve got something special – even when he got rocked in those rounds, he won them. He fought back, he didn’t run and hold, he punched the f**k outta the other guy.

“To beat a Filipino champion you’ve gotta be able to fight. There’s five thousand of them in each weight division. You’ve gotta be able to fight.”

Jarvis is widely expected to move up in weight after struggling to make the 122-pound weight limit.