By Scott Gilfoid: A nice little domestic level scrap will be taking place this Saturday night between former welterweight world title challenger Frankie Gavin (23-2, 14 KOs) and Sam Egginton (18-3, 10 KOs) on October 22 in a fight for the vacant World Boxing Council International welterweight title at the Barclaycard Arena.
It’s a decent fight between two second tier fighters that are battling hard to get into the top tier to challenge the bigger names. Gavin, 31, already fought for a world title in May of 2015 in losing a 6th round knockout to IBF 147lb champion Kell Brook.
There was nothing in that performance from Gavin that would suggest that he can come again and have better results against Brook or one of the other champions in the welterweight division, but you can’t blame Gavin for wanting to try.
Gavin looked like the better technical fighter than Brook, but he was missing the punching power to make it a fight. If Brook had to respect Gavin’s punching power the way that he had to respect middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin in their fight on September 10, then I think Gavin would have had an excellent chance of beating Brook. Unfortunately, Gavin doesn’t have much pop in his punches for the 147lb division, and that’s his limiting factor that is keeping him from having his career take off.
Gavin said this to skysports.com about his fight against Eggington on Saturday night:
“I know people will say it’s a completely different fight but it’s not completely different [in terms of style], it’s just I am a better boxer than Skeete and I’m harder to hit than Skeete. This is going to be a good night for Frankie Gavin. I don’t think he’s got a very good boxing IQ. I think it’s very low. He’s very poor technically and I still stick to that.”
The 23-year-old Eggington recently was beaten by Bradley Skeete by a 12 round unanimous decision earlier this year in March. It was a disappointing loss for Eggington, to be sure. WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia’s management had reportedly been interested in a fight against Eggington, which is a surprise given that he was little more than a fringe contender in the welterweight division before his loss to Skeete.
Gavin defeated Skeete by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 116-111, 116-112 and 116-113 in 2014. Based off those two fights, you might conclude that Gavin will beat Eggington on Saturday night. However, styles make fights, and Gavin could come up short against the younger Eggington, Gavin took a lot of punishment in his loss to Brook last year, so there’s a chance that he’s not the same fighter that beat Skeete in 2014.
If Gavin loses to Eggington on Saturday, then you have to assume that it’s pretty much over for Gavin in terms of him having the potential to make it back to the top tier in the 147lb division. Losing to the likes of Kell Brook is one thing, but getting whipped by Eggington would be a strong signal to Gavin that he’s going to need to make some decisions about his boxing career. If Gavin is good with being domestic level fighters, then I don’t see a loss for him against Eggington as being a big deal. It will be a big deal if Gavin is hoping to get back to the top of the welterweight division for another title shot.