On Saturday night Tommy Coyle lived his American dream as he made his US debut on the undercard in Boston. Where does he go from here could a world title shot be in his future?
The fight started a bit cagey with both men just swapping jabs for the first 2 rounds. The fight really caught fire in the 3rd round as Coyle started to go to work on the inside landing hard shots to the head and body. In between the 2nd and 3rd round Ryan Kielczweski’s corner asked him does Coyle hit hard and he said no. However for the rest of the fight Coyle continued to stay on the front foot landing big shots, then in the 7th round he dropped Kielczweski and it didn’t look like he would beat the count. However with the count at 8 Kielczweski got back to his feet, then Coyle committed something of a rookie error when he came out of the neutral corner before the referee said box which meant that Kielczweski got a crucial few more seconds to recover while the referee dealt with Coyle. I know that might sound petty but under the rules of boxing in the case of a knock down the fighter standing must stay in the neutral corner until the referee has finished administering the count and he has deemed that the fighter is fit to continue. For the remainder of the round he went looking for the finish throwing everything he’d got at Kielczweski but it didn’t come. Maybe if he hadn’t had given Kielczweski that extra few seconds he might have got the stoppage but that is been ultra critical. For the last 3 rounds he seemed happy to continue landing shots and boxing his way to a wide point’s victory winning the fight 99-90, 98-91 and 96-93 on the judges’ cards.
In his post fight interview he said that he doesn’t think he’s good enough to win a world title and he’s probably got a maximum of 3 fights left in him and he’d love to have another fight in the states and one back in Hull so that he can say thank you to all the fans that have supported him over the years.
I know he said that he doesn’t think he can win a world title but I have to disagree for a man who was on the verge of hanging up the gloves after he knocked out Sean “Masher” Dodd in the 6th round to win the Commonwealth title earlier this year. He still looks like he’s got plenty in the tank to me. I know he’s not the most likely choice of fighter to get a world title shot but you never know. America is a funny place for boxing one minute you are fighting on the undercard the next you are topping the bill fighting for a world title off one good performance and that’s exactly what Coyle gave us on Saturday night. Let’s face it boxing is littered with fighters that have had far less ability than Tommy Coyle that have been given a shot at the world title and I don’t think there’s a person in the sport that should begrudge Tommy at least a shot at the title, for the boxing romantics among us it would be the perfect end to a quite remarkable career and story.
As always I love to hear what you guys think what did you make of Tommy Coyle’s performance on Saturday and has he done enough to get a title shot? Please comment below and let me know your thoughts.