Galahad v Dickens II: Domestic grudge match for the featherweight world title

Kid Galahad takes on long standing rival Jazza Dickens this weekend in the second iteration of Matchroom’s 2021 Fight Camp series, but rather than domestic honours on the line as in their first meeting, the prize of world champion awaits the winner.

With the British featherweight division seemingly in good shape, with Leigh Wood taking the WBA (Regular) title last weekend, all eyes turn to Saturday.

Galahad’s second shot at glory

It’s been over two years since Sheffield-born Galahad suffered his first defeat in the professional ranks, and it’s one that was met with some degree of controversy.

Galahad was scheduled to meet then IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington, who had become Warrington’s mandatory challenger for the belt, and many thought it was a step too far for Galahad during that time of his career.

Warrington, who was coming off the back of two stunning victories against former world champions Lee Selby and Carl Frampton whilst ripping the world title from the former in a brutal 12-round war, seemingly held all the momentum at the time, and Galahad was tasked with travelling to the champion’s hometown Leeds to try and rip the belt from the city.

But after 12 rounds of action, Galahad silenced all of his critics with a slick and stylish performance – he made it awkward for Warrington throughout, slipping power punches and catching his opponent on the inside before jolting back out of range on numerous occasions, and many thought the underdog had done enough to get the job done.

The rematch was the talk of the domestic scene after it was announced that Warrington had in fact won the fight by split-decision, but unfortunately, the opportunity never came to pass.

Fast-forward two years and Josh Warrington has vacated the IBF featherweight title, and it will be the same version of the world title that Galahad will have the chance to compete for on Saturday evening. In his mind, this fight is one of redemption, but it will be another former rival in front of him of which to overcome.

Dickens’ revival

Liverpudlian Dickens has been in with fighters of all calibre’s during his 33 professional fight career, but often struggled to get over the line in big moments, most notably in two back-to-back title fights between 2016 and 2017.

The first was his big chance, taking on, at the time, a pound-for-pound star in Guillermo Rigondeaux for the WBA super-bantamweight title, but unfortunately he was retired after the second round.

Dickens was then scheduled to fight still unbeaten Thomas Patrick Ward, who remains to many an enigma of boxing, and who after 30 professional fights remains the longest standing unbeaten active British fighter. This time Dickens fell short in the ninth round.

Since then, he has been on a bit of a revival, most notably over the last two years, moving up in weight to fight in the featherweight edition of the Golden Contract, an initiative put together by MTK Global, with eight fighters facing off twice before two meet in the final, with a five-fight six-figure deal on the line.

Dickens came out on top of them all, and now looks to cement his place at world level with his toughest test since those two battles four years ago.

Galahad is the favourite though, with 1/3 to get the win on fight night and 5/4 to do it by his favoured way of Decision or Technical Decision, with Dickens 5/2 and 7/2 in those two markets respectively.

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