The picture perfect left hand that Peter McGrail sunk into Brad Foster’s body last weekend couldn’t have been timed any better.
The shot caught Foster in the worst possible place at the worst possible time and brought a swift end to the junior featherweight fight. It also gave fans a timely reminder of exactly what the 28-year-old Liverpudlian is capable of.
McGrail was an outstanding amateur and his talent is such that fans quickly began taking his victories for granted. Last December’s shocking and sudden loss to the relatively unknown Ja’Rico O’Quinn came as a major shock.
In April, McGrail, 10-1 (6 KOs), returned from the defeat by outpointing the tricky Marc Leach in comprehensive but understandably vigilant fashion and was in need of an eye-catching result.
Foster is a former British and Commonwealth champion but – result-wise at least – is in the midst of a poor run of form.
The red ‘L’s’ on a fighter’s BoxRec page don’t allow much room for nuance and they fail to do justice to how close Foster’s losses to Jason Cunningham and Rhys Edwards were. Nobody has come remotely close to doing what McGrail did to him.
“I felt it was on the cards, you know what I mean? He’s been body punching well lately in the spars, so it was good,” McGrail’s trainer, Paul Stevenson, told BoxingScene.
“It was always going to be quite a hard fight because he [Foster] is good and he’s big at the weight and he’s strong. He has good tactics. He’s clever and experienced and no-one’s done it to him before. And he was up for it.
“So, obviously, that’s the best type of finish you can get. Just one shot and go home in round two against an opponent like that because they can be long nights
“I can’t remember who it was now, but someone said he was sort of what Liam Davies is now, when they were backing him and pushing him a couple of years ago. And the losses he got were all quite close anyway, weren’t they?”
In recent weeks, British and European champion, Dennis McCann, has been mandated to defend both of his titles against McGrail.
Given McGrail’s amateur pedigree, the decision was quickly made to fastback him through the world rankings, and he bypassed a burgeoning British scene to concentrate on climbing the WBA ladder.
Over the past couple of years, the excellent Liam Davies has established himself in the world top 10 at 122lbs while McCann has matured and begun to develop into the talent that many predicted when he burst onto the scene as a teenager.
Suddenly, the prospect of taking on his British rivals is much more appealing to McGrail. Yes, domestic bragging rights would be at stake but fights with Davies and McCann would now also have implications at world level.
“With Riyadh Season, you can pay them properly, so it makes sense for everyone. Well, certainly for us,” Stevenson said.
“You can go on the British route, and you can have really hard life-and-death fights for not much advancement in the world rankings and I’ve just never really loved that as a route, unless you had a lad who you were sure that was his limit.
“With Nick [Ball, the WBA featherweight champion], we didn’t even bother with any of that. We just went straight up the WBC rankings.
“But as I say, I think we’ve got the best kid in Pete out of them lads you mentioned and so whichever brings the best advancements and the best finances for Pete, then they’re the one.”
As Stevenson alluded to, Riyadh Season is the place to be and a fight between McGrail – who is represented by Matchroom – and Queensberry’s McCann appears to be a shoo-in for the second instalment of the 5 Vs.5’ series, which pits fighters from the promotional giants against each other.
McGrail’s team are certainly interested.
“I don’t think they want it. I think he was making a few noises because Pete didn’t look on fire in his last fight and he got beat the one before that and he’s probably thinking it’s about the right time for him,” Stevenson said. “But then, obviously, when he’s seen him do that [to Foster], now Dennis McCann’s making different noises.
“It’s up to them. We do our own thing anyway, so if not them it’ll be someone else and if it’s not Saudi, it’ll be somewhere else, but we’ll just keep advancing and Pete can be a world champion 18 months – even 12 months – from now. Just see what happens.”
John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79
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