As part of the undercard for the Anthony Joshua fight on Saturday 11th October at the Excel Arena in London, Ricky Boylan took on Tyler Goodjohn for the vacant BBBofC English Light Welterweight title. The fight turned out to be the best of the night by a long way and even one of the best of the year so far. You simply can’t beat an all English grudge match for action and entertainment, the two had been sparring on Twitter before the fight and continued their spat in the ring.
The fight started in spectacular fashion with Goodjohn unleashing a flurry of early punches on Boylan and wobbling him quite badly at one point, it looked like he might not even last the round but to his credit came back well. As the fight progressed, a similar pattern emerged. Goodjohn had the much better defence and countered effectively landing quite a few heavy blows. Boylan continually came forward throwing plenty of punches but took a lot of punishment in return.
The fight was close, with both fighters landing and taking punches, you just felt that on the whole Boylan missed with more of his punches and took a lot more. Goodjohn came across as the more mature, complete boxer and got the majority decision at the end of the fight. The three judges scored the bout 96-96, 96-94 and 96-94.
At the end of the match both fighters were gracious and realised they had taken part in an instant classic. When questioned on a possible rematch, both seemed keen.
