In a highly entertaining contest at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom, Leonard Bundu (31-0, 11 KO’s) retained the EBU (European) welterweight title by a razor thin split decision over Frankie Gavin (19-1, 12 KO’s) in the nights main event. The victory also earned him Gavin’s Commonwealth (British Empire) welterweight title.
Both fighters displayed a high rate of activity, with Gavin landing the cleaner scoring punches through the first half of the bout and winning the opening five rounds. The turning point came in the final minute of the sixth frame where Bundu took a play straight out of of Micky Wards playbook; a left uppercut-left hook to the body combination dropped Gavin at ring center. Gavin managed to barely beat the count, and gained a few critical seconds of recovery when he was walked to his corner by the referee to have his mouth piece rinsed, and finished the round on his feet.
Bundu capitalized over the next five rounds, mauling the home fighter and repeatedly back him to the ropes, throwing three and four punch combinations. Try as he might however, he just couldn’t hit the sweet spot again. Gavin being the warrior he is, did all he could to fight back in an attempt to regain control of the fight.
The final round resembled the first five; Gavin out worked Bundu and easily won the round, taking the fight to the scorecards. A close fight to call, both fighters held their hands high in anticipation of notching one in the win column. As it would turn out, the knockdown would be the deciding factor as scores of 115-112 for Gavin and 114-113 twice for Bundu gave the defending champ the victory much to the dislike of Gavin who left the ring after the decision was announced.
In a post-fight interview at ringside, Bundu cited Gavin as a good fighter, and in response to promoter Frank Warren’s talk of a rematch, stated in part “give me a lot of money and I’ll come”. This was the sixth successful defense for Bundu. Gavin retains the BBBofC British welterweight title, which wasn’t at stake in this bout.
In the night’s co-feature, heavyweight prospect Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne (21-0, 18 KO’s) remained undefeated, taking a unanimous decision over Andriy Rudenko (24-1, 16 KO’s) to retain the WBC Eurasia Pacific Boxing Council heavyweight title and win the vacant WBA Inter-Continental heavyweight title.
It was a moderately paced contest, and Rudenko was a tougher opponent than expected. Despite giving up 30 pounds and being inactive for nearly 18 months, he took Browne’s best shots until the end, returning a fair share of his own. His hand speed was better than that of his larger counter part, but his lack of footwork and head movement allowed Browne to land the bigger punches and despite being out worked, pull out a unanimous decision scored 115-113 and 116-112, with the third card scored wide at 117-112 which, even the Box Nation commentators questioned.
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