Gavin misses IBF deadline for eliminator, Porter vs. Bradley now possible

By Boxing News - 04/07/2015 - Comments

gavin577By Scott Gilfoid: #5 IBF Frankie Gavin (22-1, 13 KOs) reportedly missed the IBF deadline for him to commit to an IBF 147 pound eliminator bout against #3 IBF Tim Bradley. As such, the IBF will be replacing Gavin with #6 IBF Shawn Porter to see if he’s interested in facing Bradley. It’s unclear if Porter will agree to that considering that his adviser is Al Haymon and Bradley’s promoter Bob Arum.

As for Gavin, it’s really not all that surprising that he didn’t go for the IBF eliminator bout against Bradley because it’s not as if he needs an eliminator bout to fight IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook.

Both fighters are in the same Matchroom Sport stable, and their mutual promoter Eddie Hearn already has said that he’s interested in potentially making the Gavin vs. Brook fight. The guy that will lose out if the Gavin-Brook fight takes place is 27-year-old South African Chris van Heerden, who currently is scheduled to face Gavin on May 9th in a 10 round bout at the Barclaycard Arena, Birmingham, West Midlands, in United Kingdom. That fight can easily be scratched by Hearn with him then moving Gavin off the May 9th date and putting him in against the 28-year-old Brook on May 30th at the O2 Arena in London, UK.

Like I said, Gavin doesn’t need an IBF eliminator in order to fight Brook, because Brook has a voluntary defense for his next fight, and that means he can pretty much fight anyone he pleases. Obviously, it helps Hearn if he can match two of his stable fighters together rather than having them fight other opponents that could possibly beat them both.

I don’t know that Gavin has earned a title shot against Brook or any of the other champions. I mean, Gavin lost to 40-year-old Leonard Bundu by a 12 round last year in August 2014. In November of 2014, Gavin won a controversial 12 round decision over Bradley Skeete in a fight that many boxing fans felt that Gavin lost.

I must say that Gavin looked horrible against Skeete, about as bad as he did in the Bundu fight. Other than those two poor performances by Gavin, he did defeat little known Bogdan Mitic in his last fight in March of this year, and Mate Hornyak last October. It is good news that Gavin at least beat those guys without controversy, but it is bad news that they were obscure fighters and not top level guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfN7RwGs3I

The Brook vs. Gavin fight will do okay in the UK. Gavin is well-known in England, and he’s got a fairly decent fan base for a fighter who has never done anything in the pros. Besides the controversy surrounding the Gavin-Skeete fight, Gavin also went life and death in defeating Curtis Woodhouse by a 12 round split decision in 2011 in a fight that a lot of boxing fans thought Gavin lost. To be sure, I had Woodhouse winning that fight. Gavin didn’t look like he trained hard for the fight, and Woodhouse really took it to him.

If Brook does wind up facing Gavin on May 30th, it’s going to take a lot of the argument that Brook and Hearn have had about Amir Khan facing weak opposition. Gavin’s a decent fighter, but I don’t see him as someone who rates a title shot and rates being ranked #5 by the IBF.

What I don’t understand is how the IBF has Gavin ranked No.5 and Bundu not ranked at all in their top 15. I mean, Bundu did lose to Keith Thurman recently, but he looked a heck of a lot better in losing to Thurman than Gavin did in losing to Bundu. I think the IBF got their rankings messed up in having Gavin in their top 5 spot. To me, I see him bottom 15 at best.

I can’t rank Gavin any higher than the 15 spot because of the mediocre opposition he’s faced his entire career, and how bad he looked when he was whipped by Bundu. How do you rate a guy at No.5 when they get a boxing lesson by a 40-year-old fighter?

Brook will likely have an easy time beating Gavin. It’ll be interesting to see if Showtime or HBO opts to televise the fight in the United States, or if they’ll pass on the fight due to it looking like a mismatch on paper.



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