Perennial nearly man Scott Lawton takes on Armenian Leva Kirakosyan for the vacant European super-featherweight crown tonight in his home town of Stoke.
It's last-chance saloon time for the one-time prospect. In June of 2009 Lawton lost out on the British lightweight title to John Murray by way of sixth round TKO and, at 33, this is surely his last chance to secure a decent strap and line-up one more shot at a big payday.
In his pursuit of glory Lawton has stepped down to super-featherweight and he visibly enjoyed being the bigger man in his fight against Derry Mathews. It was basically the biggest fight of his career so far and at 5ft 10in he had a supreme height advantage that he used in his favour, keeping Mathews at bay and asserting his dominance.
He will have a similar advantage over Kirakosyan tonight, who stands a full five inches shorter than Lawton. Make no mistake though, Kirakosyan is the heavy favourite. The Armenian has been around for 11 years now fighting all over the globe and holds a record of (31-5, 21 ko´s) - he will be keen to reclaim the European title having won it in 2007 before losing it to Sergey Gulyakevich, who appears on the undercard tonight.
It’s not the first time Kirakosyan has been over to these fair shores. He’s been here three times before, most notably dropping fans' favourite Michael Gomez in the sixth round back in 2004. As a fighter Kirakosyan is a tricky customer, with fast hands and boundless energy, but at 36 years of age he is coming to the twilight of his career. He is on the back of a five-match winning streak including four knockouts against slightly lesser opponents, and Lawton will be a big test for him.
In his last fight as a lightweight against the excellent Murray, Lawton struggled to find a rhythm and was over-powered by Murray, who did actually come in overweight. Fighting at super-featherweight opens up new avenues for Lawton to explore and he will be keen to build momentum towards a world title fight.
In front of his home town crowd, Lawton is going to want to put on a show and he knows this is going to be one of the biggest fights of his career, in terms of what’s at stake. It always seems that he can never rise to the big occasions and pull himself over the line in the big fights, losing title clashes with Jonathan Thaxton, Amir Khan and Murray. The fight tonight with Kirakosyan will prove once and for all whether Lawton is a bottler or is just lacking that extra 10% in quality that a true champion needs.
So a big night for Lawton and a big night for Stoke. Lawton will be desperate to send his local contingent of fans home with smiles on their faces.
If victory is assured he will start looking at the big names in the super-featherweight division, then he could well become a law unto himself.
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