By Nate Anderson: Unbeaten light welterweight prospect Frankie Gavin (2-0, 2 KOs) defeated Mourad Frarema last night by a 3rd round stoppage in a scheduled four round bout last night on the undercard of the Commonwealth heavyweight clash between champion Martin Rogan and challenger Sam Sexton at the Odyssey Arena, in Belfast, Ireland. Gavin, 23, a former 2007 ABA lightweight champion, opened up with a barrage of punches in the 3rd round as he caught Frarema against the ropes.

With Frarema, 24, not throwing any punches back at Gavin, referee Mark Green stepped in and stopped the fight with one second to go in the 3rd at 2:59 of the round.

Unlike his first fight, a fourth round TKO over George Kadaria in February, Gavin didn’t take a lot of punishment from his opponent, choosing instead to box from the outside with his jab. Against Kadaria, Gavin was looking to impress and got in close to land body shots and ended up getting hit a lot resulting in a cut up nose.

This time, Gavin chose to use his jab and fight mostly from the outside in the first couple of rounds. Frarema, from France, made it tough on Gavin by constantly circling the ring and presenting a moving target. Frarema was in full retreat mode for most of the fight and only occasionally throwing shots back at Gavin.

Still, even with Frarema retreating around the ring, Gavin stuck to his jab and didn’t fire many power shots.
In the 2nd round, Gavin continued to stalk and jab Frarema. Every once in awhile, Gavin would catch up to Frarema and hit him with a combination but those moments were few and far in between for the most part.

In the 3rd round, the body shots that Gavin had been landing in the first two rounds appeared to take all the movement out of Frarema, as he became much more stationary for Gavin. This allowed Gavin to tee off on Frarema with hard body shots for much of the round.

As things were getting near the end, Frarema backed up against the ropes and took an enormous amount of punishment from Gavin. Frarema tried to slide away, but Gavin blocked his escape round and hit him with six more shots to the head. The referee then stepped in and halted the fight.

Overall, Gavin looked okay, but his lack of power made him much less impressive. He’s going to need to develop more power than that if he wants to be anything more than a local fighter. As of now, Gavin doesn’t have anywhere close to enough power to be ranked in the top 15 in the world scene.