George Warren wants Denzel Bentley to stay busy and build on the momentum he generated by stopping Danny Dignum at London’s York Hall on Saturday night.
Six months after losing his British middleweight title to an inspired Nathan Heaney, a calm, focused Bentley took his former sparring partner apart inside two rounds.
Last night’s fight was painted as a make or break night for the heavy-handed Londoner but if the 29-year-old was feeling the pressure, he certainly didn’t show it.
Bentley, (19-3-1, 16 KOs), was a picture of confidence and floored Dignum twice with straight right hands to the body before switching his attack upstairs and dropping him for the third and final time with a clean right hook.
Bentley has consistently maintained that while he would happily double back and attempt to even the score with Heaney if the opportunity presented itself, the defeat – and the personal reasons behind it – hadn’t caused him to doubt himself or to reassess his ambitions of competing at world title level.
After watching Bentley find himself against Dignum, George Warren revealed that although he won’t get his shot at redemption just yet, he would like to see a rematch at some point.
“The only other guy who’s done that is [WBO and IBF champion] Janibek Alimkhanuly, a guy that Denzel’s been in with and despite the loss out there, that was his best performance because it showed that he can be at that world level,” Warren said.
“I don’t want to be disrespectful to Nathan Heaney, He’s a great British champion who’s got his own career. Denzel’s got his own career as well. He thinks that he wasn’t right that night so for me, naturally, I’d love to see that fight again eventually. I think we’re gonna see Nathan and Brad Pauls try and dust off the draw that they had last time on our Magnificent Seven show.”
The middleweight division has moved on over the past six months and although stopping Dignum won’t reclaim all of the ground Bentley has lost, the conclusive nature of the victory did serve as an extremely timely reminder of exactly what he is capable of.
With Heaney tied up and his Queensberry stablemate, Hamzah Sheeraz, finalising preparations for his upcoming fight with Austin “Ammo” Williams, Bentley can concentrate on forging his own path for the foreseeable future.
Warren revealed that he will be given every opportunity to do so.
“I know Denzel wants to be fighting regularly and that’s what we’re going to be doing,” he said. “We want him out in July, we’ve got a big London show that he’s going to be back out on but with fights like that, performances like that and stoppages like that, he’s gonna be hard to match.”
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