Matchroom Home Coming show
Line Up on the 13th May
Matchroom promotion announced their line up for their Birmingham show at the
Barclaycard Arena on the 13th May. The Show will be called Home Coming and will be headlined by Kal Yafai Birmingham’s WBA Super Flyweight World Champion who will be putting his world title up against Sururu Muranaka.
Yafai became Birmingham’s first World champion with a dominant performance over Luis Concepcion in Manchester in December to claim the vacant title, Kal, 27 is unbeaten in 20 fights and has 13 knockouts to his name cannot wait to headline his homecoming show.
Yafai said “It’s a dream come true to be topping the bill in Birmingham as a World champion. Kal continued “Winning the title in Manchester was amazing, but Birmingham is the place I want to fight and to turn the Barclaycard Arena into my hometown fortress.”
Also on the show will be Eastside's Sam Eggington who will be challenging for the European champion against the Spaniard Ceferino Rodriguez who it the current champ and has won 24 of his 25 fights with 12 coming by the way of knockout. Eggington who has won 20 of his 23 fights and is coming off a very impressive defences of his WBC International welterweight title against two time world champ Paulie Malignaggi in March of this year and will be looking for the home surport to cheer him on to victory.
Another exciting match up on this star studded show is English and
WBC International Super Bantamweight champ Sean “Showtime” Davis who will be putting his WBC title up against Gamel Yafai who is Kal’s brother. Sean (27) who has won all 12 of his pro fights has been pressing for this fight for a while and will be since it was cancelled last year because Gamel was injured wil be looking to make it lucky 13th win against his Brummie rival. Gamel (25) has also been pushing for this fight and kept his unbeaten run going by winning his 11th fight away in Germany. This fight has the potential to be fight of the night with there own super bantamweight bragging rights going on.
Frankie Gavin makes a welcome return to the ring and will be taking on Dave Ryan from Derby. Gavin who lost to Eggington in one of the fights of the year in 2016 will be looking for his 24th win in his 27th fight. Ryan who has won 17 out of his 27 fights will be looking to upset the Birmingham city faithful who always support Gavin.
Also confirmed on the Homecoming show is a Midlands area title fight between two exciting young fighters. Eastside's Ryan Kelly will take on Adam Harper for the Midlands Middleweight Area title. Both boxers are unbeaten Kelly winning 8 and Harper winning 7 and this fight as well has the potential to steal the show.
The rest of the undercard consisted of some of the best Midlands talent around with Aaron Lovell, Charlie Williams, Jordan Clayton, Kieron Conway, Lennox Clarke and one of the bbcolumn's boxers to watch Cori Gibbs also boxing on this show.
Matchroom promotors Eddie Hearn said about the show “There has always been a strong boxing community in Birmingham, now it's time to reach out to the casual supporters. The people who like good sport and good entertainment, we want them to come along and enjoy the fact that Birmingham has got some great fighters and a world champion as well and follow their journey”.
Homecoming tickets will be available from midday at the Barclaycard arena from Thursday 16th April, tickets are priced at £40.00 £60.00 and £100
Dexter’s Thoughts
Another great line up with some of the best Midlands talent on display in this Matchroom promotion show, their are some exciting fights already announced with Birmingham's World Champ Kal Yafai headlining the show by putting his title on the line. With in my eyes soon to be World champ Sam Eggington contesting the European title and taking another step closer to a world title shot these two fights for me are worth the admission price.
There are also two fights on the undercard I am really looking forward to seeing, Ryan Kelly against Adam Harper is set to be an exciting contest, with both fighters having similar unbeaten records and with the Midlands area title on the line this fight will set the winner on there way to bigger and better titles.
The match I am really looking forward to is Sean Davis against fellow Brummie Gamel Yafai for Davis’s WBC International Super Bantamweight title. I was at Sean’s last fight at the Holte Suite, Villa Park on the Top Promotions show where he shook off any ring rust in a 6 rounder winning every round and to me he looked as sharp as he did for the Bragging Rights show last year where he won his WBC title. Gamel has also been in action recently going over to Germany last week and winning away from home getting a unanimous decision against Khvicha Gigolashvili. This is the fight I am looking forward to the most as it is a 50/50 fight with both fighters putting there unbeaten records on the line.
The rest of the undercard is looking good as well, I am looking forward to seeing Cori Gibbs in action and hopefully he gets on the live show so the world can see what this talented fighter can do. With Arron Lovell, Charlie Williams, Jordan Clayton, Kieron Conway and Lennox Clarke also on the show I am really looking forward to Matchroom’s big Birmingham show.
Now there are a few of Birmingham's finest fighters that have not got on this show which has surprised me namely English champ Don Broadhurst and bbcolumn's boxer of the year and WBC International Middleweight champ and Olympian slayer Craig Cunningham. Both fighters were on the last big Matchroom show where they both won there respective titles. Both these fighters would have been a great additions to an already talented line up.
The Birmingham Boxing Column will be trying to get interviews with as many of the fighters as we can over the next few weeks.