Jack Catterall vs Shakhram Giyasov

It would be easy to think that Catterall has an advantage here due to his experience at the professional world title level. The Englishman has long been seen as the rightful winner of his unified super lightweight title contest against Scotland’s Josh Taylor back in February 2022. Since that night, wins over Darragh Foley, Jorge Linares, the rematch with Taylor, and a comprehensive decision win over Regis Prograis led to a vacant interim title challenge against Arnold Barboza Jr., where the Englishman lost by split decision on home turf.

Subsequent wins over Harlem Eubank and Ekow Essuman see the Englishman back at the top of the division and challenging the unbeaten Shakhram Giyasov on the undercard of Oleksandr Usyk’s fun fight against Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Former Olympic silver medalist Giyasov has a 17-0 professional record with 10 wins coming by knockout, but it is really his amateur pedigree that could give Catterall problems in the early stages of this fight. Ranked number one with the WBA. The Brooklyn-based Uzbekistan-born fighter is going to have his moments in this fight, no doubt, but it is that extra experience at the world title level that should see Catterall through to a decision win.