Nathaniel Collins Reties After Seven Rounds Against Liam Davies

Liam Davies retained his European featherweight title at Birmingham’s bp pulse LIVE on Saturday night when Nathaniel Collins’s corner withdrew the challenger after seven rounds. Davies had put him down in the first, damaged his right eye in the fourth and controlled much of the contest with a jab that gave Collins too much ground to cover before he could get to work.

The result settled an important meeting between two men seeking a place in the world title picture. Davies had won the vacant European belt against Francesco Grandelli in March, his first major success since leaving super bantamweight. Collins, a former British and Commonwealth champion, had fought Cristobal Lorente to a draw for the European title before losing their rematch on a split decision in April. Neither had come to Birmingham for an easy assignment. Davies made certain Collins’s became the harder one.

The champion began sharply. A short left caught Collins within the opening moments, and a straight combination sent him to the canvas midway through the first round. Collins got up and composed himself. He had spells of success in the second, when he found opportunities to answer Davies, but the champion was willing to hold his position and counter. The knockdown had given Davies an early advantage; the quality of his work thereafter made it difficult for Collins to recover it.

Davies’s jab was central to the fight. It checked Collins as he tried to advance and helped the champion establish the range for his heavier punches. Collins, boxing from a southpaw stance, could still produce an occasional burst, and he landed a lead right hand and counter left at points in the contest. Too often, though, he was reaching the edge of punching distance just as Davies was ready to hit him. The champion’s shots were cleaner and better selected.

In the fourth, a left from Davies opened a cut around Collins’s right eye. Swelling developed around the injury, leaving the challenger with another problem to solve while he was already struggling to get past the jab. Collins wanted to continue, and a doctor examined the eye in the fifth before permitting him to fight on. His willingness was plain. So was the difficulty of the task: he needed to close the distance more often, avoid Davies’s counters and do it with his right eye deteriorating.

Collins kept trying. There were replies when Davies stood within reach, but they did little to alter the pattern. Davies continued to find him with long, accurate punches and did not allow the challenger’s determination to draw him into a careless exchange. Collins had entered with a reputation for energy and resilience. He showed the latter in Birmingham, although resilience alone was no answer to the champion’s control of range.

At the end of the seventh, Collins returned to his corner and his longtime trainer, Joe Ham, called a halt. The official result was a stoppage at three minutes of round seven. There were no judges’ scores to consult, and no reliable punch totals have been published. The decisive numbers were one first round knockdown and seven completed rounds of increasing punishment for the challenger.

Davies improved his record to 19 wins and one defeat, with 10 stoppages. Collins fell to 17 wins, two defeats and one draw. For Davies, this was a convincing first defence against a capable opponent with ambitions of his own. The move to featherweight has brought him a European title and now a performance that strengthens his case for a world title opportunity. Collins will need time to recover from the injury and from a defeat more decisive than the narrow one he suffered against Lorente.

I thought Collins would make Davies work harder than he did. He’s a capable southpaw with quick reactions, but Davies took away the space Collins needed almost from the start. The early knockdown mattered, of course. What impressed me more was how Davies kept control once Collins got up.

Davies used his jab to set the distance, then held his feet when Collins tried to come through it. That takes judgement. Step back every time, and you give a southpaw room to reset; rush in, and you can walk onto the counter left. Davies did neither. He picked his moments, landed straight and made Collins start his attacks from too far away. Collins had the odd good reply, but he was usually punching after Davies had already done his work.

I’ve seen plenty of fighters fall in love with a stoppage after putting a man down early. Davies kept his shape. That’s the difference I see in him at featherweight. Against Shabaz Masoud, he spent too much time chasing and loading up. Here he let his positioning and punch selection do the job. The left that damaged Collins’s eye made a difficult fight worse, but Davies had established the pattern before the cut appeared.

I won’t criticise Collins for wanting to carry on. He was brave, and he kept looking for openings. But his corner made the right call. Once his eye was swelling and he could no longer avoid the jab, sending him back out was unlikely to change the result. Davies was the better boxer on the night, and he earned this stoppage by controlling the fight as much as by hurting his man.