Thaxton v Romanov-European Lightweight title ,tonight Sky Sports 1 9:30

Big Ears

As the title says tonight on Sky Sports 1 we're in for a real treat as Yuri Romanov defends his European Lightweight title against gutsy British champion Jon Thaxton .

Romanov(ranked #3 by the WBA) best known in Britain for his destruction of then British champion Bobby Vanzie , flooring him 5 times on route to a 8th round stoppage is looking to push towards a shot at WBA 'regular' champion Jose Alfaro . To do that he has to get past the tough aggressive Norwich battler Jon Thaxton .

Thaxton finally earned himself a Lonsdale belt 16 months ago with a spectacular win over Lee Meager and has defended the title twice against Scott Lawton and Dave Stewart , although has failed to recapture the form of the night against Meager .

Romanov who will also be known to Sky viewers due to his impressive win over Steve Murray and close fight with Graham Earl(I had it 115-114 Romanov) which went the Luton man's way . I feel had Romanov not been so rusty by being out of the ring for 15 months he would of stopped Earl , he had Earl reeling many times in the fight and totally took over from the 7th onwards but had given away too many rounds(at least on the refs card) gaining back that sharpness .

It looked for a long time like Thaxton may never win a British/Commonwealth title and he really would of been an unlucky man not to . He at one point chinned the current British and Commonwealth title champion Paul Ryan in a round but it was a non title fight .

He then beat Bernard Paul(who was just after winning a British title eliminator against Jason Rowland) , Paul then got a chance to fight for the vacant Commonwealth title some months later and won .

Thaxton then beat Paul Burke(a former British and commonwealth champion who had fought for the European title) , Burke beat Bernard Paul for the Commonwealth title in his very next fight .

A vacant British title fight was fought between Mark Winters and Carl Wright at a time when Thaxton was much more deserving than either fighter to get a chance to fight for the title . Winters won and his first opponent was Bernard Paul and then Jason Rowland , two more less deserving fighters . Rowland won however and finally Thaxton was given a chance to fight for the British title .
Thaxton's luck wasn't about to get any better as he sustained a badly cut eye and the fight was stopped from it in the 5th resulting in a Rowland win .

Thaxton was to finally receive a bit of luck as the British title became vacant once more , the only problem is he had to fight a young upstart by the name of Ricky Hatton for the title . In a gruelling 12 round war a badly cut Hatton got the better of a badly cut Thaxton by 117-113......it really was bloody .

Thaxton then fought Eamon Magee for the Commonwealth title and the Irishman proved far too good stopping him in 6 rounds .

Then almost bizarrely at the age of 30 Jon Thaxton decides to drop a weight division from Light-Welterweight to Lightweight , and it works wonders . After winning the WBF bauble he got his chance at the British title against Meager , and he more than took it .

Romanov's career since Earl has been slow but steady progress . It took him 10 months to get back in the ring after the Earl fight , but his first fight back was against Juan Carlos Diaz Melero of Spain for the European title . Despite being floored in the 3rd Romanov got back up to deck his opponent for the count in the same round .

He then fought the experienced but past it Tontcho Tonchev in his home country of Belarus stopping the Bulgarian in 3 rounds .

He was then matched against another very experienced opponent in former World and European champion Steffano Zoff who like Tonchev was a little past his best(although not as much) . A disappointing Romanov performance left him only winning a decision which although deserved was close on two cards .

Now as both fighters meet with important goals in sight , Romanov working towards a World title , Thaxton looking for that European title and both keeping one eye on Amir Khan there is a lot riding on this fight , and it won't fail to deliver . I expect to see a war between these two tonight with the classier Romanov getting the better of it with cleaner , crisper punches and forcing a stoppage around 9 or 10 . Romanov's straight right will be the real damaging punch , while Thaxton's got to use his aggression , unorthodox style and power to back Romanov up where he is less effective . Body punching is key for Thaxton he needs lot of it .

The undercard consists of:
Rueben Groenewald v Richard Horton
Lee Purdy v Jamie Spence
Gareth Couch v Tom Glover

Groenewald and Couch should win quite easily , Purdy spence I'm not so sure about but going with Purdy . It's a pretty tame undercard for such a great main fight .

I was watching Colin Dunne v Billy Schwer today and if it can live up to that Lightweight fight in London , then I will be more than happy .


Enjoy .

nacho libre

I hope Thaxton wins but i doubt he will.

cowzerp

I threw a few quid on thaxton but think this is going to be close!
i also threw a few quid that it will end before round 10 either way!
fingers crossed..:D

megadodge

Very impressive performance from Romanov.

Having seen him before I was tempted to throw a few quid on Thaxton, purely because one of his qualities - patience - seems to leave him with plenty in the tank when he should really be going all out. That's what happened v. Earl, when I thought if he really went for it earlier he would have stopped Graham. As it was Earl was really hanging on for the last 3 rounds and showed great guts just to last, but Romanov lost it rather than Earl winning it.

Tonight however, he showed why he's so highly rated. Tight defence, beautiful balance, precise hurtful punches, just an all-round excellent display. Would be a handful for any boxer at lightweight.

Would make a great test for Khan whom I rate very highly.

cowzerp

Romanov looked good-Khan will avoid him like the plaque-thaxton even landed some hard shots and they just did not faze romanov at all!

nacho libre

Yeah, a very impressive performance by Romanov. It would be fascinating to see him take on Khan.

Big Ears

cowzerp wrote: »

Romanov looked good-Khan will avoid him like the plaque-thaxton even landed some hard shots and they just did not faze romanov at all!

and they're dead right to aswell , Romanov would be like kryptonite to Khan .

Great performance from Romanov , showed his class and he should be fighting for the WBA title within 12-18 months . He'll become mandatory after current , mandatory Paulus Mosus fights Jose Alfaro(WBA 'regular' champion) .

Groenewald is a lot more shot than I thought he'd be , still all credit to Horton who deserved his win .

young Purdy looked very very good indeed , nice tight compact and very accurate . Shares a lot of his strengths with Romanov although he is much more aggressive .

Shame we're going to have to go from the quality of tonights fights to Amir Khan's farce tomorrow as he takes on the extremely average Kristjansen .

Khan stoppage before 6 .

The Artist

thaxton couldnt continue as due to a nasty cut .imo they might have a rematch?

Big Ears

davey180 wrote: »

thaxton couldnt continue as due to a nasty cut .imo they might have a rematch?

No chance , Thaxton was being torn apart and would have been stopped inside the distance anyway . If his corner thought he could win they'd have wanted him to continue no matter how bad that cut got(they've done it in the past) .

The only person who'd be interested in a rematch is Thaxton .
Thaxton will defend against Meager to win the Lonsdale belt outright and the only time he'll contest the European again is if Romanov vacates .