Nottingham delivers the goods

It, as anticipated, turned out to be a magical night at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham on Saturday when Anthony Cacace, once again, proved himself to be a heavyweight operator at super featherweight.

It was spine-tingling stuff with the atmosphere created by Leigh Wood’s legion of fans, really sensational. I would like to pay tribute to them, plus those who travelled over from Belfast, who made it such a special occasion, played out in such fine spirits.

It was our first visit to the city for some 20 years and, after experiencing it again, it is tempting to stock up on Nottingham fighters!

You never know, it might just be for Leigh, but now must be given the time and space to work out what is best for his future. It will be his decision.

Leigh, it must be acknowledged, was disadvantaged by his lengthy period of inactivity. Anto himself stated that he did not beat the best Leigh Wood, but he beat the one put in front of him.

After sampling the euphoria of his ring entrance and the din it stirred up, it did make me wish we had got together with Leigh earlier in his career.

It was still a cracking fight as pretty much everyone always knew it would be. It was one you could guarantee as soon as the match was made.

Anto is just going from strength to strength and he now has the names of three former two-time world champions on his record, which is some going. And in his last three fights at that.

His story should serve as a lesson to all fighters. You can’t cut corners or be half-hearted in boxing. As soon as Anto applied himself and dedicated himself 100% to his craft, it opened up a whole new world for him.

His natural talent was backed up by tenacity, fortitude and 12-round fitness. Anto being 36 does show it is never too late, but I wouldn’t recommend others leaving it so late to switch on. Do it now because there are no easy fixes in this game.

Hopefully the career progression of Ezra Taylor will give us good reason to venture back to Nottingham in years to come. He showed his added class in a tough match against the previously undefeated English champion Troy Jones.

It was a proper old Nottingham vs Birmingham dust-up, which didn’t disappoint. It does bewilder me sometimes when you get some of these podcast people taking snipes at undercard fights. It is actually disrespectful to the fighters themselves, whereas it is probably meant as a pop at the promoter.

Like I say, two undefeated light heavyweights at the same sort of current level going at it, plus Liam Davies bumping up a weight and going straight in against an unbeaten Olympian and Owen Cooper taking on a tough, tough test against a well-seasoned and still ambitious welterweight.

It was a highly competitive undercard and each of the fights went all the way. I don’t believe there was anything to complain about, but that is the nature of the beast, I guess.

I thought Liam looked strong in his first outing at featherweight. He didn’t want to test the water and wanted to jump straight in against strong opposition. He has now set himself up for an exciting ride at 126lbs, where options are plentiful.

I was thrilled for young Owen too. That loss to Ekow Essuman could have set him back but, like Liam, he didn’t want to jolt into reverse and took on a similar level challenge in Chris Kongo.

He did fall a bit behind early on but Owen has the capacity to maintain a pace and tempo from start to finish and I was always confident he would overcome any deficit down the stretch.

Owen is a cracking little fighter with the heart of a lion and he also gives huge entertainment value. There are more top 50-50 fights out there for him and I wouldn’t back against him.

Finally, we had four successful debut-makers featured on the show, so congratulations to Joe Tyers, Huey Malone, Harris Akbar and Charlie Senior. All were elite amateurs who I am confident will go a long way in the professionals.