TURCHI AIMS FOR TOP 10 WBC RANKING WITH WIN OVER MCCARTHY

by Liam Gilsenan

Italian Fabio Turchi (17-0 KO 13) will go head to head with Irelands Tommy McCarthy (15-2 KO 8) in Italy on Friday.

Turchi enters the fight as a slight favorite with the oddsmakers and will be putting both his undefeated record and WBC International Cruiserweight title on the line. These fighters were originally scheduled to face off in July, but Turchi pulled out of the bout citing injury.

The Italian southpaw was last seen getting rid of late notice replacement Sami Enbom inside the opening round in his hometown of Florence. On the other hand, McCarthy’s last outing was in July where he forced late replacement Francesco Cataldo’s corner to throw in the towel in the second round in Rome.

McCarthy has been rebuilding under Pete Taylor, father of current unified Lightweight world champion Katie Taylor, after a defeat to Richard Riakporhe. After the demoralizing loss to Riakporhe, McCarthy has strung together two wins and now has his eyes set on the hard-hitting Turchi.

Turchi’s best win came in November of last year when he handed former Commonwealth champion Tony Conquest a defeat via knockout. That fight was close until Conquest suffered an eye injury and was stopped in the 7th of a scheduled 12 rounds.

A win over the well-rated Turchi could be enough to throw McCarthy into some big fights in the cruiserweight division. McCarthy has arguably been in with the better opposition of the two but has been beaten in his two big steps up in class, to Riakporhe and Matty Askin whereas when Turchi stepped up to face Conquest he passed the test, even if it wasn’t with flying colors.

With the WBC International Cruiserweight strap on the line, Turchi will be looking to win this fight and move up the WBC Cruiserweight rankings. Turchi finds himself currently ranked 15th with the WBC and with fighters like Lawrence Okolie, who meets EBU Cruiserweight champion Yves Ngabu on October 26th, and Andrew Tabiti, coming off a loss to Yuniel Dorticos for the IBF belt, above him in the rankings big fights could lie on the horizon for the Italian.

For McCarthy, this is a golden chance. After two losses to Okolie and Askin, The Irishman will have a huge chance to gain a top 15 WBC ranking with a win over the highly-rated unbeaten Italian. This would be huge for Tommy, after being blasted out inside four rounds by another highly touted prospect in Riakporhe, McCarthy now has a chance to grab a massive win and pull himself back into contention for fights with other British prospects such as Lawrence Okolie or Deion Jumah who is coming off a big TKO victory over Wadi Camacho.

This is a very intriguing contest and will be very interesting to see what happens when the first bell sounds as a victory for either man presents them with a big step in the right direction.