Tonight sees Prizefighter return at the famous York Hall and this time round it's time for the welterweights to battle it out out for the Prizefighter trophy and the large sum of prize money! This one has an interesting line up and as always it's hard to pick a winner.
The eight contenders are Dean Byrne, Jason Cook, Johnny Coyle, Mark Douglas, Sam Eggington, Paddy Gallagher and Johnny Garton. You can make a case for any of these guys winning as after all it's different format to a normal fight with the 3 x 3 minute rounds.
The bookies have Paddy Gallagher as the favorite and this is probably down to him being an excellent amateur winning a Commonwealth title and it's clear he's got talent but is still a novice in the pro game having had only 4 fights, 4 wins and 3 coming by way of KO.
Then you have Dean Byrne who's as tough as they come. Byrne showed true fight and bravery in his last contest in Monaco on Golovkin's card where he went the distance with unbeaten, hard hitting Roman Belaev. With 21 fights Dean Byrne's one of the most experienced fighters in this Prizefighter and has only lost on 3 occasions and also has one draw to highly regarded American Carson Jones who's shared the ring with Kell Brook on two occasions.
I like the look of unbeaten London fighter Johnny Garton who's currently 11-0. He's a member of the iBox gym which boasts a good stable of fighters such as Bradley Skeete, Ricky Boylan and Iain Weaver who are all unbeaten fighters. I saw Garton's last contest and was impressed with his shot selection and work rate and could be one to watch.
The outsider in the tournament is Mark Douglas. The bookies have him 22/1. The Reading man has a record of 11 fights, 8 wins and 3 defeats, 2 of his defeats coming to World and European title challenger Lee Purdy where Douglas had to retire with a dislocated shoulder in the 4th round but was giving Purdy a fight up until this point. He also lost a close points decision to ex British champion Ashley Theophane. Since his defeat to Purdy he's come back and won 4 fights on the bounce and shouldn't be written off.
Jason Cook is the most experienced fighter who's had 36 fights so far in his career which has seen him win the European title. He's fought the likes of Gavin Rees and Lenny Daws. He is now 39 and much as he's an experienced fighter he's not as fresh as some of the others in this tournament which could be his downfall.
I don't know too much about Sam Eggington but he's only had one defeat in 9 outings and that came in a previous Prizefighter where he went out to Welsh boxer Dale Evans but since has beaten Dave Ryan who's recently beaten world title contender Paul McCloskey and I've heard that Eggington likes to fight.
Now we come to Johnny Coyle, like Sam Eggington I don't know too much about Coyle but he's got an undefeated record of 3 wins and 1 draw so far so this shows he's one of the most experienced fighters out of the eight but then again he's only 20 and this could be an advantage being young and fresh and winning Prizefighter could really put him on the map!
Finally there's Erick Ochieng, the ex English champion and British title challenger. Ochieng has lost his last 3 fights and looks to need this to relive his career. Since losing to Liam Smith for the vacant light middleweight title he's not looked the same fighter that he did early on in his career but he's still got bags of talent and winning this would put him back on the map.
This is a really good Prizefighter and it's genuinely hard to pick a winner. Anyone of these 8 fighters could win this tonight. It's live on Sky Sports 2 from 9pm so why not tune in to what's going to be an amazing night of boxing!
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