Loughran celebrates a Midlands hat-trick
CHARLIE Loughran – the Coventry amateur heavyweight being tipped for big things – has bagged a hat-trick of Midlands titles.
Last night (Thursday) in Acocks Green Charlie outpointed George Master (South Wye Elite Boxing) to again capture the region’s development championships’ heavyweight crown.
Victory sparked jubilant scenes among his large following of supporters. The 20-year-old product of Toe 2 Toe ABC is evidently a popular lad.
Loughran said: “He was strong and about 29. He was tough, but I caught him with some big shots. Fair play, he kept coming forward.”
Charlie earned his place in the final by outpointing Wolverhampton’s Dempsey McManus at the weekend, the bout also held at Acocks Green.
“I thought he performed better in the semi-finals,” said coach Billy Parmar. “Yesterday wasn’t his best performance. It was competitive, the other guy was smaller, very strong, tough and took Charlie’s shots well. I thought Charlie looked a bit fatigued, but when he did throw the combinations, he had the other guy on his heels. He knows that was not his 10-10 best.”
Now it’s on to the national quarter-finals next weekend.
Charlie’s hoping this year will see him at last become champ of England: he’s made it to the final for three years on the spin.
As a youth, he was ruled out for arriving too late to the weigh-in. Last year Oliver Hockney outpointed the tall convert from martial arts.
In fact, Hockney is the only man to beat Charlie in a 20 bout career: he’s done it twice, winning a club show rematch on disqualification.
After the developments, Charlie will chance his arm in the national elite tournament for under 21s: “it’ll give him a feel of three minute rounds,” said Billy. After that comes the elites proper and a chance to discover Loughran’s full potential, his true worth.
I like the way Parmar is handling his fighter’s journey. Others may be getting carried away, he is not. He knows Charlie needs to add a bit more beef to his long frame before mixing it with the professional rank’s big men.
“Charlie is improving all the time,” he said, “he just needs to get more fights. The only fights we can really get are on tournaments, we can’t get him on club shows because of his record.
“He’s just turned 20 so time is on our side. There’s a risk with the pros and we have got to watch to see how he fills out. We are doing strength and conditioning with him now and by the time the elites come we expect him to be much stronger.”
In preparation for the day he becomes professional, Loughran has sparred such top men as Frazer Clarke, Moses Itauma and Richard Riakporhe.
But Parmar stressed: “We need that amateur sparring, otherwise you pick up bad habits like waiting too long.”
It remains too early to say Coventry has found a new star in Charlie Loughran – there are still test to overcome.
But he’s currently shining very brightly.