New Year, new Frankie Gavin perhaps?
Dean Edwards thinks so – and he knows Gavin better than most.
They grew up together on the Small Heath estate in Birmingham and Edwards is training Gavin for his fight with Namibia’s capable Bethuel Ushona in his home city on February 23.
More than the vacant IBO welterweight title is on the line at The Genting Arena.
The show is billed as ‘Now or Never’ and Edwards goes along with that sentiment.
Either the Midlands’ mischief maker produces against Ushona – or he has little future left in boxing.
“Frankie has had a good career in a tough, tough sport,” said the 40 year old,” but has he under achieved? Yes, he has.
“Frankie feels he has let himself down away from the gym and he knows at this stage of his career, he can’t afford to do that anymore.
“He knows I’m the boss.
“We are like family, but I’m in charge – and Frankie knows that.
“Frankie has asked me to train him before and I wasn’t interested because it wasn’t the right time.
“I knew he wasn’t committed.
“But he has proved to me that he wants to knuckle down and achieve what he should have achieved,
“The Frankie Gavin I’m seeing in the gym would have beaten Sam Eggington and had a chance of boxing Kell Brook’s ears off.
“But by the time he took those fights, he had lost his love for boxing and was doing it for the money.
“He was offered a fight with Josh Kelly for good money a few months ago and I told him: ‘If you fight for money, we won’t work together. You’re better than that.’”
Edwards accepts that without their connections, Gavin may well be boxing on the right-hand side of the bill.
The ambitious show at the Genting Arena is being backed by BWI Events, in conjunction with Errol Johnson’s Black Country Boxing.
Edwards is representing Gavin having previously worked with the likes of hot-and-cold cruiserweight Chris Keane, Troy James and Jamie Cox and admits Ushona wasn’t his first choice of opponent for Gavin.
But European champion Mohamed Mimoune priced himself out of the fight and veteran Carlos Molina wasn’t interested.
Ushona is a credible enough opponent who’s been around the world rankings for a while, but he’s 35 years old now.
There was talk of a Gavin-Ushona WBO-title eliminator in early 2014 that came to nothing and British fans may well remember the Namibian losing to Denton Vassell for the Commonwealth title in 2011.
Early on, Ushona gave Vassell trouble with his slickness and movement, but the champion proved to be too strong in the second half of the fight and won unanimously on the scorecards.
Edwards hopes beating Ushona will put Gavin in line for bigger fights.
He reckons Gavin has the beating of Jeff Horn – but Terence Crawford will surely take the WBO belt off the Aussie before Gavin can get to him.
Horn looks to make way too many mistakes to beat a fighter of Crawford’s calibre – and we wonder if Gavin has the punch to compete at the highest level.
No question he has the skills.
Gavin won world championship gold in Chicago in November, 2007 during his amateur career – and had he still been able to make 60kgs the following summer, he would have been fancied to win the Olympics in Beijing.
In his absence, Alexey Tishchenko won gold. Gavin had beaten the Russian in the semi finals of the World Championships.
Gavin has won British and Commonwealth titles in his pro career, but at the higher level, he has come unstuck against Leonard Bundu and Kell Brook in European and world-title fights respectively.
He didn’t lose to Bundu by much – the sixth-round knockdown Gavin suffered was crucial – but against Brook, Gavin simply couldn’t keep the champion off him.
Boxing being boxing, the losses are possibly the fights that define Gavin’s career – and the number of trainers he’s had.
He started out with Anthony Farnell, then went to the Tibbs,’ Jimmy and Mark.
They were left scratching their heads by Gavin’s brilliance in the ring and crazy behaviour out of it and Gavin ended up going home to work with his former amateur coach, Tom Chaney.
They had their successes, then split and Gavin then went to the Eastside gym, run by Jon Pegg.
“The thing with Frankie is, he can be easily led,” said Edwards, “and at times, he’s mixed with the wrong company, he’s tried to impress the wrong people
“He’s more settled now, he’s got two children and he’s not going out as much.”
Edwards says ever since he’s known Gavin he’s been “a joker, a piss taker.”
Gavin was once fond of unzipping his flies in public places, such as busy shopping centres and pubs, told Sky Sports he unwinds before fights by watching pornographic films and told me he was worried aliens were going to abduct his trainer!
“Frankie has grown up a bit,” said Edwards.
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