Can Tom Glover come back this year?

To those of you that were privy to his boxing matches last year, Tom Glover, former Southern Area welterweight champion, had a rollercoaster ride packed with drama and excitement.

My first televised encounter with the tough Maldon man was his match against Chas Symonds back in March 2009.  It was an exciting fight, with Glover winning deservedly by a single point.  He then heightened the dram by gaining a revenge win over Nadeem Siddique that June, and crowning his year with a gutsy display of heart against former European lightweight champion, Jonathon “Jono” Thaxton a month later.

His fortunes then changed.  Rising star John O’Donnell broke Glover’s nose in the second round of their fight, before the referee stepped in to halt the fight in the sixth.  This was the first time Glover had ever been stopped.  Against O’Donnell, Glover was physically much smaller and any seasoned viewer would be forgiven for thinking that welterweight wasn’t where Glover belonged.  If the loss to O’Donnell wasn’t enough to persuade him, then the loss to Adnan Amar surely was. Glover had no answer for the lanky boxer and struggled to get inside before; once again the referee halted proceedings.  For the man who has his day job in the building industry, the year ended with misfortune.

2010 is a new year.  Judging from his coverage in the media, Glover is clearly a popular fighter.  His “Rocky Balboa” style of coming forward and forcing the fight on the inside belies his solid defence, great chin, decent stamina and his ability to punch accurately.  He does however lack power in his punching.  And arguably, he has been fighting in the wrong weight division; see as he started as a lightweight when he turned pro in 2006.

My thoughts would be that firstly, Glover and his team need to decide which weight division to return at.  If he can train down to lightweight again, his would be all the more advantageous to his physique, as opposed to outsize, tall welterweights.  At the very least, he must aim for the light-welterweight division.  At barely 5’7” Glover needs to balance the physical side of things out in order to gain an edge for his infighting style.  If Glover can incorporate greater movement into his style, avoid straight paths to his opponents and increase his defensive movement, he can produce wider scoring margins in his favour.

Secondly, a couple of closely scheduled warm up bouts against seasoned pros like Youssef Al Hamidi, Jason Nesbitt or Steve Gethin would be the key to restoring Glovers confidence, and would provide opportunity to shake off the Christmas period ring rust.  It will also hopefully take his win column into double digits before progression.

Then, depending on the weight in question, there are several intriguing fights available to Glover.  As things currently stand, possible clashes with either Lee Purdy (for the Southern Area light-welterweight title) or Lee Cook (for the Southern Area lightweight title) would decide if Glover has a credible future as a contender on the domestic scene.  However an oddball clash with Peter “Connemara Kid” McDonagh would also be a prospect to relish given that both fighters are better than their records suggest and both have proven chins and come to fight.  That would be some battle.

Whatever Glover and his team decide to do, I hope that he will decide to continue his career and feature on the boxing bills for 2010, bringing that classic underdog excitement with him.