By Scott Gilfoid: Barry McGuigan is hoping the former England cricketer Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff (1-0) will hang up the gloves after a successful pro debut where he defeated Richard Dawson by a 4 round points decision. The heavyweight prospect Flintoff, not young at 34, looked slow, weak and wild as he attacked in what appeared to be a Joe Calzaghe-like fighting style.
Flintoff got knocked down in the 2nd round by one of the few punches that the rounded Dawson threw in the fight, and you have to wonder whether Flintoff would have lasted even 1 round had he been in an opponent that actually threw punches instead of just backing up the entire fight the way Dawson did.
McGuigan said to Sky Sports News “I just hope he doesn’t want to do it anymore because it was such a tough, difficult job to get him into that shape. He worked exceptionally hard but it was a real trial.”
McGuigan went on to say that he wondered whether Flintoff would be able to have the same success if he were to go to the United States to fight next. McGuigan doubts Flintoff would have the same positive success.
Here’s my take. If they’re just going to find guys that can’t fight a lick then it’s possible the 6’4″ Flintoff might be able to continue to win, but you can’t know for sure with that guy because he looks so absolutely horrible.
You’d have to find guys making their own pro debut or fighters with dreadful records for Flintoff to have a decent chance at winning, and even I don’t know if you could say with any degree of certainty that he’d win. He’s not young, and he fights in a straight up manner that makes him susceptible to getting clobbered.
McGuigan may have worked with Flintoff a lot on his conditioning, but he still looked like he was flabby despite having slender built. It was strange because you could see the flab jiggling all over his body on a thin frame. It was very strange.
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