Flanagan vs Mathews: A Preview

This Saturday, in Liverpool, undefeated fighter, Terry Flanagan will be defending his WBO world lightweight title against Derry Mathews on a BoxNation promotion show that includes the likes of Paul Butler, Zolani Tete and prospect Tommy Langford.

Awkward southpaw, Terry Flanagan is the big favourite coming into this fight. Last year, he beat, then unbeaten, Jose Zepeda, to win the vacant WBO title and has already had one defence against Diego Magdaleno who he destroyed in two rounds. His career has been an impressive one having beaten the likes of Nate Cambell (even though he was shot by this point) who was a former unified world champion and Stephen Ormond a man who has beaten Matthews as well.

32 year old home-town fighter, Derry Mathews, has had a gruelling 49 fight career and with a record of 38-9-2, with his best win coming against current WBA lightweight champion, Anthony Crolla, who he stopped impressively in the 6^th round. His career seemed to be in tatters when he lost 4 of 5 fights against relative nobodies back in 2008 however it is a testament to his resilience that he has managed to come back from setbacks time and time again and win British and Commonwealth honours.

Flanagan won a unanimous decision when the two met back in 2012 and has come on leaps and bounds since then. This should be an easy night’s work for the Mancunian who will be looking for some big defences come the end of the year. 

Mathews, although he has a lot of heart, simply does not have the ability to beat Flanagan who should win by stoppage. Having said all this, there is the potential that Mathews could drag Flanagan into a war but in my opinion the 26 year old is far too cute to allow that to happen.

Outcome: Flanagan KO round 6

Tom Eckett

@boxingguru44

https://twitter.com/boxingguru44