THE perfect fight at the perfect time – that is the general consensus among fight fans as Sean McComb aims to move to 8-0 and Renald Garrido over eight rounds at light-welterweight.
The Turf Lodge native has enjoyed an outstanding start to life in the paid ranks – racking up seven wins and in impressive style as he has suddenly found himself entering the title conversation despite still being short of one full year since his debut.
Should he impress in victory over Garrido, then he may get a crack at a title belt before the end of the year and that would represent incredible progress for the 26 year-old, dubbed ‘The Public Nuisance’.
“All goes well and I will be 8-0 in my first year, so you can’t ask for much more than that,” said the former amateur standout.
“People say at 10-0 you are ready for titles, but I honestly think I’m ready now. I’m still only 26 so I have plenty of time, but I believe I’m being managed brilliantly.
“The steps I have taken from (Zoltan) Szabo to Troy James to (Mirolslav) Serban and now Garrido have been the right steps at the right time.
“I’m 17 in the British rankings already so I’m fighting good opponents and getting good results.”
Garrido will be a familiar name to Belfast fight fans having tangled with McComb’s stable-mate, Tyrone McKenna at the SSE Arena back in 2017.
The Frenchman has yet to be stopped in his career and many will expect him to take McComb to the cards, but then that was the plan for the former Holy Trinity amateur last time out and he blitzed Serban in the opening round.
“The last fight, on paper, was a tougher test because he (Serban) was 11-2 and a Czech champion who had never been stopped,” he offered.
“MTK (management) want to give me the rounds now because next year they are looking to push me towards titles and want to give me the championship rounds, so that’s why they’re matching me with these types of opponents.
“Hopefully I get eight, tough rounds and then next time I can move onto 10 so I have experienced them going into big title fights.”
While Garrido has a modest 24-24-3 record, it doesn’t tell the full story as ‘Le Lion’ could count himself extremely unlucky not to get the nod in some of those contests.
The 36 year-old is the archetypal road warrior and while the crowd will be fully behind the home man, Garrido will care little and will come to fight rather than survive.
There is no doubt this is a great test and potentially the fight where McComb and his team will know if they are ready to move into title contention in the near future, but the West Belfast man is fully confident he will be too much for the visitor.
“He is a tough operator,” he acknowledged.
“He is good enough to give any good fighter problems, but I think I will have too much for him.
“There are two or three different ways I can box him: I can use my movement and out-box him, meet him in the centre of the ring, or fight him up close.
“My punch selection is much better than his and accuracy is better, so I will just see what aspects of the game work when I’m in there, but I don’t think it’s going to be much of a problem.”
It will be a special night in the Falls Park for all on the card, but especially for McComb who spent so much time there growing up.
He has been fortunate to appear on some big cards and major venues over the past year, but says this will be the best of them all given it is effectively his back garden.
“This will be he best of them all,” he confirmed.
“I had my debut at Windsor Park and got a good slot when there was a few thousand already in the stadium. This is home from home for me though. Falls Park is a place where I have so many memories growing up – good and bad – so this will be another time at Falls Park that I can speak about for as long as I live.”
