Does "Dirty" Derry have the tools to crack The Rock in Newport?
Welshman Gavin ''The Rock'' Rees will look to extend his boxing rehabilitation at the expense of Britain's lightweights when he defends his European title against Liverpool's former WBU featherweight champion "Dirty" Derry Mathews at the Newport Leisure Center in Wales (live on Sky Sports 1 from 20:00 GMT).
Mathews is himself on a comeback of sorts, and has won his last four fights – all this year. Rees is unbeaten in eight bouts dating back to his WBA light welterweight title losing effort against Andriy Kotelnyk in 2008. Both men like to go to war, and Mathews knows this is his last throw of the dice. It should be a thriller, while it lasts.
Some critics were ready to write off Rees following his loss to Kotelnyk in 2008, despite the fact that it was his first defeat in 28 fights, and he was just 28 years old at the time. Rees, they argued, had gotten great returns from his limited abilities, and his face-first style of fighting and limited punching power had taken him just about as far as he could go.
He had won the WBA 140 lb world crown just eight months earlier on an unforgettable night in Cardiff, outworking the talented Frenchman Souleymane M'baye over twelve sensational rounds. Even then, most experts believed that Rees's tenure as champion would be brief in a division as competitive as light welterweight, and that was ultimately the case. Rees was systematically taken apart by the Ukrainian Andriy Kotelnyk in his first title defence March 2009, losing his title on a 12th round TKO.
Rees returned to the ring after a 17 month layoff in December 2009, scoring a fourth-round retirement victory over professional journeyman Johnny Greaves. Using the platform of Sky TV and Matchroom's Prizefighter competition, Rees rubber-stamped his comeback with three victories on the night to pick up the trophy and the £32,000 pound cash prize.
Two more victories followed against moderate opposition, and when it was announced that Rees would challenge the undefeated John Watson of Liverpool for the British lightweight title, many critics and experts believed that it was a step too far for the likable Welshman. However, as he has done throughout his 13 year boxing career, Rees ignored the critics and scored a sensational 11th round TKO over Watson in a see-saw war of a fight. Suddenly, Gavin Rees was back in business.
He found himself once again in a position of betting underdog when he met the red-hot Irish prospect Andy Murray for the vacant E.B.U (European Boxing Union) lightweight title in June of this year. Murray was undefeated in 24 fights, and at 5'10" tall held all of the physical advantages over the stocky, pit-bull like Rees, yet once again the Welshman was to prevail against the odds, scoring a close but unanimous 12 round decision.
The win over Murray elevated the 31 year old Rees (35-1, 16 ko's) to number 12 in the WBC's world rankings, and he has been promised a top 10 spot if he scores a victory over Mathews tonight.
Once one of the hottest prospects in British boxing, 28 year old ''Dirty'' Derry Mathews (29-5, 15 ko's) is on a somewhat unlikely comeback of his own. The mercurial Mathews, one of Liverpool's favorite fighting sons, looked finished when he was crushed in the final of the November 2010 super featherweight installment of Prizefighter by Gary Buckland. Ironically, Mathews had looked in his best form in years earlier in the competition, stopping the once beaten Gary McArthur on a third-round TKO, and outpointing his former two-time conqueror Choi Tseveenpurev in the semifinals.
However, Buckland was in the form of his career that night, laying waste to the previously undefeated British super featherweight champion Gary Sykes in just 45 seconds in the semifinals. He was not going to be denied, and when he floored Mathews late in the first round, the writing was on the wall. Derry did well to survive that round, but Buckland caught up with him with another right-hand pile-driver midway through the second round, and at that point Mathews' seven-year career looked to be over.
Mathews looked destined for a world title when he won his first 20 pro fights. At a shade under 5'9'', Mathews was freakishly tall for a featherweight, yet could hit hard, scoring 11 of his fifteen career stoppages at the weight. A series of crushing defeats that saw him lose four out of five fights by knockout between 2008 and 2009 looked to have ended his career. Instead, Mathews gained weight, moving first to super featherweight and then lightweight. He has lost just once – to Buckland - in nine fights dating back to November 2009.
The reality is that the best three lightweights in Britain today are Kevin Mitchell, John Murray and Anthony Crolla, in that order. Mathews makes the top ten, but only just. He defeated an equally shopworn Scott Lawton in his first comeback win in January, and has since won three times against moderate opposition.
Still only 28, Mathews should be right at his peak, but five stoppage losses in his career, four by count out, would look to make him tailor-made for the powerful hooks that Rees likes to throw. If Mathews were to win tonight, it would be one of the domestic upsets of the year, but if Rees has taken his eye off the ball, and considers tonight's bout a foregone conclusion and has not put the necessary hours in on the road and in the gym, Mathews has an engine and a work rate that is as good as anyone's, and is capable of outlasting Rees to take the decision.
The Welshman has never been a concussive puncher, with just sixteen stoppages in 36 fights, but at lightweight he seems to be punching harder than ever, and I think after handling fighters of the quality of Watson and Murray in his last two fights, Rees will turn on the style tonight in front of the Newport crowd and dominate from the opening bell, wearing down Mathews with a relentless head and body attack before scoring an eighth round TKO.
Prediction: Rees by TKO in eight.
Big Fight Odds: Gavin Rees 1/7, Derry Mathews 9/2
SkyBet
