Pegg: Now Sam just wants to hit people

Jon Pegg…he called the win over Pigford, few believed him

NOW the sediment has settled on Sam Eggington’s sensational Saturday night stoppage of unbeaten KO artist Joe Pigford, it’s time to assess the scale of the performance.

In the coastal town of Bournemouth, Stourbridge’s Sam annihilated a man who came into the ring with 20 straight victories, 19 inside distance.

Pigford, from Southampton, entered the ring with the reputation of being a bad ass and met a genuine bad ass.

Journalists can wax lyrical, but the paragraph above is a succinct summary of the contest.

Eggington, following the fifth round victory, is again big news. Pigford’s bubble was burst so completely he may never be the same force again. He may never fight again.

On the coast, Joe attempted to kick sand in the face of Britain’s favourite crowd-pleaser and paid a painful price. There were ring smarts as well as savagery in Eggington’s work.

Sam’s manager, Jon Pegg, called it before the first bell and on Monday he was, understandably, in ebullient mood.

He said: “Mick Hennessy and Peter Fury have called and said, if he’s pointed down the right route there’s no reason why Sam couldn’t beat one of the big four. Peter Fury said he’d never seen Sam win like that.”

Pegg insists 29-year-old Eggington is today a much more complete fighter than the one outpointed last year, in Australia, by veteran Dennis Hogan for his IBO light-middleweight crown.

“His attitude going into the Australian job was to pay for his home and make his family happy. Australia made that happen. Now he is a truly dangerous veteran who wants to punch people.

“In camp (for the Pigford fight) he was happy. If you train miserable, you fight miserable. If you train happy, it happens – and Sam was happy for this one.

“My only concern about the fight was that the beast in Sam would want to get Pigford out of there, he’d want to trade. He probably would’ve won by trading, but it was a risk we didn’t want to take. If he followed the plan, he couldn’t lose.

“He followed the plan and, seriously, in the first minute I knew Sam had got him. After the second round, Sam came back to the corner and said, ‘he’s got nothing’. I told him to calm down and stick to the plan.

“For me, this result is in the top five of Sam’s performances. For complete boxing, it’s there with the win over Glenn Foot (2015, eighth round British title stoppage). He boxed the man’s head off.

“Sam has always been naturally strong, but now he’s matured more so.

“Saturday was supposed to be Pigford’s coming out party, it turned out to be his wake.”