Carruthers shows maturity to give Cameron a test

Terry Carruthers showed new-found maturity to survive a furious opening round barrage and push his opponent all the way.

The Birmingham light-middleweight [pictutred blocking a probing left from Kreshnik Qato at York Hall last month] went down on points to fast-starting Liam Cameron in Sheffield on Saturday [October 29] and admitted the big-hitting former ABA champion is the hardest-punching fighter he's been in with.

Decent praise when you consider Carruthers has swapped 10oz leather with mallet-fisted Liverpudlian pair Joe Selkirk and Liam Smith, as well as once-touted Trever 'Wrecking' Crewe and current English 11st boss Brian Rose. Tommy Hearns-like Selkirk was the only one listed to stop him [and he beat Crewe and drew with Smith] but he rated Cameron higher.

But it looked as though the 25-year-old Brummie was going to be swatted inside the opening three minutes, when his legs were stiffened under a ferocious two-fisted barrage from the taller and ambitious South Yorkshireman, now 11-1 (4). Carruthers survived but was rattled again and forced to defend stoutly during the following round.

Neat-boxing Cameron was generally in command but his Second City opponent, who has won nine [one stoppage] and drew six of his 26 professional outings, battled back strongly over the final three rounds and did enough to nick a session and draw another on referee Michael Alexander's scorecard before going down 59-56.

And handler Jon Pegg thought a 58-56 tally would have been a more realistic reflection on the closeness of the final rounds of the 18-minute scrap on Dennis Hobson's show at Don Valley Stadium. He said: "Though i had the fight closer, it was a fair result that Terry has learnt a lot from.

"Liam had him in all sorts of trouble early on but he rode it out and came on very strong in the last couple of rounds. He's matured a lot under our tutelage, as he has been tagged early before [against Selkirk in the summer], didn't keep his chin down and hold his gloves up, and was taken out quickly.

"But it's testament to his improvement that he came back so well in the latter stages," added well-respected trainer, manager, promoter and ex-featherweight pro Pegg.

Image courtesy of Gavin Burrows.