British Scene Preview: Denton Vassell vs Lee Purdy & Craig Watson vs Badru Lusambya

Dave Oakes previews Friday's Sky show featuring Denton Vassell vs Lee Purdy and Craig Watson vs Badru Lusambya.

This Friday’s televised Sky show sees two Commonwealth title fights headlining the bill from the Robin Park Arena, Wigan. Denton Vassell takes on Lee Purdy at welterweight and Craig Watson steps up to light-middle to take on Badru Lusambya.

This show has had more changes than a confused transsexual. The welterweight title was originally supposed to be a bout between Mark Thompson and Adnan Amar, only for Amar and then Thompson to pull out. That left the door open for Vassell and Purdy, two decent prospects who should put on a good fight.

The light-middleweight title was supposed to have been contested by Gary Woolcombe and Thomas McDonagh. First Woolcombe picked up an unspecified injury and withdrew, and then McDonagh pulled out because he didn’t like the change of opponent when Lusambya was named – an opportunity I feel he must be mad for passing up on, in my opinion, McDonagh would’ve beaten Lusambya easily. His loss is Watson’s gain.

The fight at welterweight is an interesting match-up; Vassell has only had fourteen fights, whilst Purdy has had just one more. The unbeaten Vassell, 14-0 (8KO’s), is a good prospect but has been matched carefully up to now, his best win being his sixth round stoppage of the unbeaten Eddie Corcoran, but Corcoran is one of only three opponents who entered with a winning record.

Purdy, 13-1-1 (7KO’s), has a similar record, although he holds a win over the respected Peter McDonagh. He’d lost a close points decision to the Irishman in the only defeat of his career but boxed superbly in the rematch to win comfortably on points.

Vassell with have the advantage in speed and possibly punch power, whilst Purdy has the advantage in experience after the two hard fights he had with McDonagh. Vassell hasn’t been past the sixth round and it’ll be interesting to see how he handles fighting at twelve round championship level.

This is a hard fight to pick a winner from; Purdy is a tough boxer and will be confident after his recent form. Vassell has looked impressive thus far; he picks his punches well and looks to be a sharp if not concussive puncher. I’m leaning towards Vassell on points.

Having already been Commonwealth champion at welterweight, Craig Watson has to be considered the red hot favourite to claim the title at the division above. His opponent, Badru Lusambya, boasts of a 21-1-2 (19KO’s) record but he’s looked far from impressive on the two occasions I’ve seen him box.

Lusambya has a win over Chas Symonds but despite knocking him out in the third, he looked very crude in his approach. The same can be said about when he struggled to a draw against Gheorghe Danut in Scotland a couple of year ago.

Watson, 16-3 (6KO’s), won the commonwealth welterweight title against Ali Nuumbembe, impressively stopping the Namibian in the eighth round. He defended the title against Matthew Hatton, outboxing the current European champion over twelve rounds before losing the belt to John O’Donnell via a controversial split decision.

Watson boxes behind a tight defence, has a good southpaw jab and can box beautifully when he’s in the right frame of mind. His three defeats have come against good fighters and he seems to learn and improve every time he gets defeated. Whilst he isn’t a big puncher, he does hit hard enough to gain the respect of his opponents, especially if he can walk them onto his left hook.

I think Watson has all the tools needed to beat Lusambya and would be hugely surprised if Glasgow based Ugandan was to pull off the win. I can see Watson befuddling Lusambya, picking him off at range and using lateral movement to make him miss. I’ll pick Watson by points but wouldn’t be surprised if he forced a late stoppage.

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