Walsall’s Shaun Cooper has got his sights set on challenging for the Lightweight Midlands area title in the near future. Cooper has already fought for the title last September when he took on Jack O’Keeffe at Villa park on the Tommy Owens Promotions show. O’Keefe came out victorious in this fight stopping Cooper in the forth round. Cooper has now changed trainers and is now under the tutelage of bbcolumn’s ‘Hall of Famer’ Martin Gethlin with Cooper winning his last fight just last week with Gethlin in his corner.
But before Cooper can challenge for the title again he has a massive challenge to face in a 6 round eliminator against Birmingham‘s Ishmael Ellis. Ellis who fights out of D&A school of excellence has already challenge for this title twice losing both times on points to Kane Baker and current champion Jake O’Keeffe. The Cooper, Ellis fight will be on the undercard of the Shakan Pitters, Craig Richards British title fight at the Skydome Coventry on the 28th March 2020 which will be live on channel 5. Unbeaten Champion O’Keeffe will be defending his title on the same day as the Eliminator against unbeaten Kaash Buttery at the Kings Hall Stoke on Trent. The winner out of Cooper and Ellis will challenge the winner out of O’Keeffe and Buttery at some point in the future.
I contacted Cooper to ask him a few questions about his up and coming fight, I asked Cooper how his training had gone for this fight? ‘The Scorpion’ told me “my training has been intense since I joined up with martin, every day I train he makes it hard not a single day is easy, there is not a day I walk in the gym and he say oh just a light one tonight mate! No its straight into work always finishing off with hard circuits and ab work”. I then asked Shaun if he had any worries about doing 10 rounds? He said “No, I have done it before against Boy Jones with 8 days notice”. My final question to Cooper was how did he think the fight would go? He told me “This will make me want to put a statement to everyone that my loss was just one of them days, I think it will be a great fight, I think both of us will leave it all in the ring”. Shaun finished by thanking his sponsors - Dp building and property services, Taundry doors, Simmons pork scratching, Peaky barbers and Webbs construction and engineering.
Dexter’s Thoughts
What a great fight this will be and what a great show it will be on, Cooper has move over to be coached by Gethlin and you could see the change in his last fight. Both fighters have fought over 10 rounds before and both have fought for this title so you can imagine how much these lads will want to win this. This is a true 50/50 fight and I am really looking forward to seeing who comes out the victor. Hopefully the winner gets to fight ‘No Beef' Jack O’Keeffe as I would like to see the title stay this side of the Midlands. This will be a cracking fight and fingers crossed they get some air time on channel five. Ellis was sent the same set of questions as Cooper but has not got back to the Column yet.