By Scott Gilfoid: WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan’s 2nd round knockout win over Diego Magdaleno (28-2, 12 KOs) last Saturday night seems to have gone to his head, because now he’s starting to pop off at the mouth and talk about wanting to beat more Americans.
Flanagan (29-0, 12 KOs) has defeated two Americans in a row in his last two fights in beating Jose Zepeda and Magdaleno, but he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s not facing the real talents yet. Flanagan seems to think he’s reached the pinnacle of success with his two empty wins over fighters with inflated rankings in Magdaleno and Zepda.
“I love boxing and I’m in to prove that I’m the best in the world. I’ve done two of the top Americans in a row now, the more the merrier,” Flanagan said.
This is what I was afraid of. Flanagan gets a couple of wins under his belt against soft opposition and it goes to his head completely and now he’s blabbing about wanting to beat more American fighters. Flanagan hasn’t even beaten the good guys yet like Yuriorkas Gamboa, Ray Beltran, Denis Shafikov, Micky Bey, Miguel Vazquez, Thomas Dulorme, Hank Lundy, Ghislan Maduma. Darley Perez, Jorge Linares, Terence Crawford and Rances Barthelemy.
Flanagan needs to pipe down, and get back in the gym so he can start training to fight one of those talents instead of him feasting on the guys with inflated rankings like Zepeda and Magdaleno. I don’t see those guys as top 10 contenders. I see them as bottom 15 fighters. It’s the WBO that gave them the high ranking. You’re not seeing that with the other sanctioning bodies though, are you? I don’t see Zepeda or Magdaleno ranked in the top 5 by any of the other sanctioning bodies.
“That was a cracking performance,” Flanagan said about himself. “I was really pleased with that, maybe I could have done him a bit quicker, but I’m right happy with that.”
Flanagan is really giving himself a pat on the back for his performance, isn’t he? Flanagan didn’t prove anything as far as I’m concerned with this victory over Magdaleno. For him to really prove something, Flanagan is going to need to fight the guys from the above mentioned list and beat them in order to prove himself as being a talented fighter. Until then, I think Flanagan is going to be seen as a guy that faces fighters with inflated rankings. In other words, Flanagan is totally unproven and just as unproven as he was going into last Saturday’s mismatch against the tiny 5’6” Magdaleno.
“Now people will start standing up and taking notice of me and know that I’m the real thing. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ll fight anyone, anytime,” Flanagan said.
I don’t think the American boxing fans are going to take notice of Flanagan because the fight wasn’t televised in America, and he didn’t beat anyone good like Crawford, Beltran, Gamboa and Rances Barthelemy. Now if Flanagan was to fight one of those guys and beat them, then the people would be taking notice of him. But instead all Flanagan did was beat a fighter that was already well beaten by Roman “Rocky” Martinez two years ago. Flanagan just go sloppy seconds in beating Magdaleno.
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