Nicky Cook edges towards Brodie and Harrison

[bennie]

Nicky Cook's challenge for the European featherweight title takes place on home soil at Dagenham on January 31 against France's Cyril Thomas. This is a real chance for Cook to secure a showdown with the winner of the forthcoming Brodie-Chi WBC title rematch - or even with WBO champion Scott Harrison (though politics makes that more unlikely).
But the unbeaten Thomas (22-0-3) is no mug. He trounced Naz victim Manuel Calvo in defence of his European title last year - and is ranked number seven by the WBC.

[stujones]

Very interesting fight, I think the Cook vs Thornhill fight was a little to close for anyone to be confident that Nicky is going to go a lot further. I still think Thornhill is very much a contendor for domestic honours still (I think he could beat Williams). However, I don't think he could go any further.

I'll pick Thomas, but well done to Cook's promoters for getting it on home soil.

[steve689]

I totally agree Stu, i think it may become a similar situation to Wilders-Guerault with Cook failing to get the grips with the classier Thomas and getting ground down and stopped late on. Saying that though Thomas's poor stoppage ratio suggests Cook may get a stay of execution to points possibly, but then still i cannot see a victory. I admit i have only seen Cook twice, against David Kiilu and last time against Gary Thornhill but i have seen Thomas on Eurosport and he is an improving fighter. He is steadily making an impact at Euro level with a couple of decent wins recently, a points win over reasonable Spaniard Oscar Sandoval and then the KO of Manuel Calvo. His draws seem to be a red herring as well, two were early on in his career in 6 rounders which of course can always be hard to establish a rythm in especially for a novice and then a technical draw from a cut in the second in his Euro title tilt with Italian Alex Di Meco who he stopped in the rematch.

Only one winner here for me i'm afraid and that's Cyril Thomas.