Owen gets title title shot at super-middle

Andy Owen…late bloomer to professional boxing

FOR Wolverhampton’s Andy Owen, the boxing good times have come late.

At 35 – an age when most fighters have already drawn the curtain on their careers, Andy is on countdown for his first professional title.

He’ll face Northampton’s Michael Stephenson for the vacant Midlands super-middleweight belt at The Hangar, Wolverhampton, on Friday, March 10. BCB promotes.

In all honesty, Andy – still billed from Perton, but now living in the Shropshire town of Shifnal – is an unlikely contender. This is his world title.

The former kick-boxer, raised in New Invention, turned professional without fanfare after six amateur contests, winning five, and joined the paid ranks with his old coach Richie Carter.

At 33, he made the decision to turn over late, but hit the ground running, forcing Ryan Hibbert to retire after two rounds.

“That was a great night,” said Andy. “It was on a Fightzone card in the open air at Sheffield Arena.”

The father-of-two is a no-frills fighter with his feet firmly on the ground. There are no elaborate predictions about what the future holds.

“I’m not daft,” I know my levels,” he told me. “I’ve been around the gyms for a long, long time. I’ve sparred some top quality kids, so I know I can compete at a good level.

“For me, it’s all about the next fight and see from there. If I win, it will be a case of pushing on.

“In my mind, I’m a young fighter. I don’t have the miles on the clock, I’m quite fresh.”

Lockdown proved the catalyst for Andy’s decision to become a professional – years after his last competitive bout.

“I just put the weight on,” he explained. “I was walking around at 17-and-a-half stone, started running and lost five stone, I’m still running. I started sparring and realised I’d still got it. Despite my size, my inside work is my strength.”

He enters 10 round, championship territory after just five fights over the fledgling distance – and there’s a defeat on that record.

Disaster struck in his second bout. Andy was controlling the action behind a stiff jab before Norbert Szekeres, from Budapest, dropped him with right hands in the second. He rose unsteadily at seven, but the bout was rightly stopped.

That was not the real Andy Owen in the ring, he insists.

“I came out of isolation three days before the bout,” Andy said. “I didn’t tell anyone at the time, but I shouldn’t have taken the fight. I did and he beat me. It is what it is. I’d never been on the floor in my life and will never be caught by a shot like that again. It’s one of those things.”

He has a fine fanbase and Wolverhampton has certainly got behind his big night.

“I’ve sold nine tables,” he told me. “I have a good following. My wife comes to watch me and my son (aged nine) is already mad for boxing.”

In Stephenson, Andy faces a 29-year-old who has won seven of eight.

“I don’t know too much about him,” he admitted. “I know his record and leave the rest to Richie (Richard Carter). That’s where the coach comes in, Richie has the plan.”

The Black Country hopes that plan will result in a real Cinderella story being written on March 10.