Jack Turner’s latest ring appearance lasted all of 65 seconds. In that time, the 22-year-old Liverpudlian dropped Peru’s Piero Aponte three times.
Turner, 10-0 (9 KOs), has boxed seven times in 2024, accumulating a grand total of 14 rounds’ action. He has forged his reputation at bantamweight but looked in the best shape of his career after weighing in at 114lbs for Friday night’s fight.
Aponte offered precious little resistance but Turner has displayed enough in his short-but-explosive career to suggest that he has the type of natural power that should reap rewards at a much higher level. The vicious uppercut that previously laid out Argentina’s Gonzalo Corinaldesi was perfectly timed, and frightening.
“I’m naturally strong and this is the best camp I’ve ever done,” Turner said. “I’ve been fighting at bantamweight but I’ve stepped down to super fly and I feel like I’m more powerful at this weight.
“Just give me a little bit of time. I’m gonna listen to my coaches and my team but I’m gonna be number one in this division and I’m gonna move up to bantam and I’m gonna batter everyone at bantam as well and then we’ll go from there.
“The first shot I hit him with I could see that I hurt him. He was just surviving in there, really. It was probably gonna go one way – a Jack Turner knockout.
“I’m just gonna tick over and have Christmas off. I’m looking for a big year next year. I’m coming for them titles.”
Turner trains under Joe McNally at the thriving Rotunda Gym in his home city. McNally has quickly established his own reputation as a respected trainer and somebody who prefers common sense and straight talking to hyperbole, but he can’t speak highly enough of “El Terrier”.
“He’s only dainty,” McNally said. “He’s only small but he’s the biggest puncher I’ve got in the gym and certainly one of if not the biggest-punching super flyweight in world boxing right now.
“I think he’s gotta move a little bit quick because I was expecting that to go five or six rounds. That’s a really tough kid and I’m not gonna lie, he is a flyweight moving up but that’s because he [Turner] had five or six pull outs. It’s once-in-a-generation power that he’s got. He’s a mix between Roberto Duran and Edwin Valero in my opinion. He’s a little marvel. He will be world champion if he keeps committing himself to the sport of boxing and perfecting his craft.”
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