Gavin to take on Bundu for the European title

By Gavin Duthie - 06/13/2014 - Comments

gavin577By Gav Duthie: Frankie Gavin 19-0 (12) will challenge Leonard Bundu 30-0-2 (11) for his European title on August 1st 2014. This is a real crossroads fight with much more than just the European gong at stake. Both fighters are ranked highly with some of the boxing organizations and whoever wins would have a legitimate claim for a world title shot. 

Top 15 World organization rankings

Frankie Gavin
WBC – 15
WBA – 4
IBF – 6
WBO – 3

Leonard Bundu
WBC – 4
WBA – Unranked
IBF – 3
WBO – Unranked

As a result of their relatively high rankings especially with the IBF there is a realistic possibility that the winner of this fight will challenge either Shawn Porter or Kell Brook who scrap the next week on August 9th. In my opinion neither fighter is quite good enough for world level but we won’t have to wait too long to find out. 

Frankie Gavin

Frankie was the UK’s big medal hope going into the 2008 Olympics. Just before the tournament he failed to make the Lightweight limit and never boarded the plane to Beijing. This was only the start of his problems, when he turned pro after a bright start his performances started to dip. After back to back close wins including a gift split decision against ex professional football player Curtis Woodhouse he threatened to quit the sport. Gavin then pulled out of a fight with Frank Horta just hours before the bout much to the anger of his promoter Frank Warren. He stated that he was bored with training, was suffering from low confidence and wasn’t sure he wanted to box anymore. 

After he got himself back on track he put in a solid performance against against domestic rival Denton Vassell 20-1 (10) stopping him as he failed to come out for the 8th round. Since then he has been fairly active but produced inconsistent performances against sub standard opponents like has been British level pair David Barnes and Bradley Price.  He was then dropped by Shikukutu in his last outing for the first time in his career as he won all these 3 by unanimous decision. The undefeated Bundu is a major step up for Frankie. 

Leonard Bundu

By the end of 2014 the Italian Welterweight will be 40 years old. So it is even more imperative for him that he defeats someone like Frankie Gavin and gets a title shot before its too late. I haven’t seen much of the European champion but he seems to have good ability. He has been happy to fight fairly sporadically in his home country defending his title whilst age has caught up with him. In his last fight against Lee Purdy he showed a good mixture of skills. For the first half of the fight Bundu was happy to go Purdy’s way standing toe to toe and his superior hand speed and solid chin had him edging it. What impressed me was that although he could fight this way he was intelligent enough to realise that it gave Purdy more of a chance and subsequently out-boxed him with superior movement for the rest of the fight. He wore the Brit down and stopped him in the final round to retain his title. 

Bundu has only 11 ko’s from his 30 wins but he has stopped all of his last five opponents. Bundu maybe doesn’t have a major future in the sport but might have the last word as he strives to make an impact in his final years. 



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