By Gav Duthie: Eddie Hearn has dubbed his October 25 card in Hull “The point of no return”. Matchroom have decided to take a huge risk with two of their promising lightweights Luke Campbell 7-0 (5) and Tommy Coyle 19-2 (8). Campbell is being matched with Argentine Daniel Brzuela 26-3-2 (8) and Coyle is facing the legendary Michael Katsidis 30-6 (24).

Campbell v Brizuela

After Brizuela’s last performance in the UK I would have forgiven Hearn if he had deleted the Argentine fighters phone number, unfollowed him on twitter and blocked him on facebook. Brizuela nearly threw a live grenade on the battle plan when he faced Tommy Coyle in a fight of the year candidate (earlier this year). Brizuela knocked Coyle down four times predominantly with sickening body shots. Coyle grew into the fight late on knocking Brizuela down four times himself and the referee stopped it in the Englishman’s favour in the final round. I thought the stoppage was quite controversial and I am surprised that Hearn is risking using this boxer again.

Eddie Hearn obviously thinks more of Campbell than he does Coyle. After the Brizuela fight Coyle was set for Kevin Mitchell but Hearn pulled him back after being in such a tough contest. Campbell will have another warm up bout in September before he faces Brizuela but even then he would still only be 8-0 going into a fight against a very experienced campaigner. Campbell looked rusty when he came back from injury against Craig Woodruff but was much improved with a stoppage win on his American debut on the Porter-Brook undercard. I can understand Hearn putting on a “point of no return” fight for Coyle as he has lost a couple of times and we need to see where he is at but to me this seems a little early for Campbell. If “Cool hand” Luke can win this fight he will have to be noted as a serious lightweight prospect.

Coyle v Katsidis

Brits should all remember the time when everything was going great for Kevin Mitchell before the Aussie warrior visited the UK. Mitchell had just outpointed Breidas Prescott shortly after the Colombian had knocked out Amir Khan. A win over Katsidis at that time would have undoubtedly set him up for a world title shot. Katsidis relentless pressure was however too much for the Londoner and the Australian scored a 3rd round knockout. Its fair to say Katsidis is not the same fighter today. Since then he has lost to Ricky Burns, Albert Mensah and Robert Guerrero and was retired until a surprising comeback win in a rematch against Graham Earl who hadn’t fought for 5 years himself.

This is a good risk/reward fight for Coyle as having a name like Katsidis on his CV would be beneficial despite him being past his prime. This matchmaking reminds me a little bit of when Frank Warren matched Amir Khan up with Marco Antonio Barrera after his loss to Prescott. It certainly was a risk but the idea was to get a good name on his record without facing Barrera at his peak. Coyle has displayed decent boxing skills in his career so far but has a tendency to get involved in a scrap much to his detriment which makes fighting someone like Katsidis a great risk.

Predictions

I predict that both UK fighters will come through with points wins but it won’t be easy. I am glad that Eddie is deciding to throw in some decent opponents for both fighters as he has a big stable now and can’t afford to be mollycoddling his boxers to easy nights. If they do both come through their respective fights it would be quite interesting to see them fight each other and I’m sure Anthony Crolla will also be watching closely.