Preview - Theophane looking to shine
Beware the late replacement! Ashley Theophane would do well to remember that as he takes on late sub Ben Murphy, in defence of his British light-welterweight belt at Peterlee Leisure Centre live on Sky Sports on Saturday night. Frank Maloney promotes.
Originally Theophane was scheduled to face County Durham southpaw Nigel Wright. However, heartbreakingly for the North East man, irregularities in a brain scan have ruled him out and now Theophane defends against Murphy.
Murphy, essentially a lightweight, has been handed a dream chance to win the coveted Lonsdale belt and fought recently as the 25th November so should still be relatively fit. Theophane has proven on occasion to be somewhat of a slow starter and as such Murphy will look to take advantage of that. Theophane for his part will look to shrug off the disappointment of the Wright pull out and will need to make sure he is on his game to repel what will surely be a fired up challenger for his belt.
Theophane has fought at a much higher class. Indeed he has spent a significant part of his career fighting abroad, a close points loss to Danny Garcia being an eye-catching result in itself. Wins over Lenny Daws and Jason Cook mark Theophane out as a top domestic operator at light-welter and he will be in no mood to relinquish his title here. Not a particularly heavy hitter, although he did have Laws down twice and stopped Cook, Theophane tends to come on strong in the mid to late rounds in fights.
I can see a similar pattern against Murphy. Look for Murphy to start brightly; fired up by this unexpected shot, he will be looking to surprise Theophane. However, this is essentially a fully blown light-welter against a lightweight, indeed Murphy fought at super-feather in 2010. I foresee Theophane spending the first three or four rounds having a good luck at Murphy before stepping up and I see a stoppage around six to eight rounds.
An intriguing re-match on the undercard sees Shinny Bayaar and Chris Edwards square off for Edwards' British title at flyweight. In October 2009 Bayaar eked out a split decision win. Edwards will be looking for revenge. In a fight I would suggest will not be one for the purists I can see Edwards with high workrate sneaking a close decision win. Although this fight is a real 50-50 match and could go either way, don’t rule out the draw!
The rest of the undercard sees a host of local fighters looking to either bounce back from recent defeats or make their mark. Darlington bantamweight Stuart Hall looks to rebound from his close decision loss to Jamie McDonnell and eases back into action against journeyman Dai Davies from Wales. Unless the epic against McDonnell has added a ton of miles to the clock, you would expect Hall to register a stoppage victory here.
Various other North East fighters get their chance to make their mark and names to watch out for include Martin Ward, the exciting Jonson McClumpha, unbeaten Paul Archer and hard hitting Danny Price who gets the rough tough Hastings Rasani to deal with.
Despite the Wright pull out this still should be a good night for North East boxing as the region continues its mini resurgence with Frank Maloney once again providing the impetus.
