Coaches certain Alex Arthur will retain world title

SCOTLAND'S top amateur and professional boxing coaches have queued up to predict that Edinburgh's WBO super-featherweight champion Alex Arthur will retain his world title when he defends it against Essex challenger Nicky Cook at Manchester's MEN Arena on Saturday.

First up was Alex Arthur's first ring coach as a professional, current Scottish Amateur international youth coach Peter Harrison who guided the Edinburgh ace through some of his earliest paid victories.

Harrison said: "I firmly believe that Alex Arthur will beat Cook because Alex will be too strong and skilful for the Englishman. Cook's last tilt at a world title against American champion Steve Luevano exposed Cook's susceptibility to heavy body punches.

"Even though Cook himself is quite a noted body puncher, that reputation has been established at featherweight level. He might not be quite so effective stepping up to Alex Arthur's natural super-featherweight territory.

"Besides, Arthur is a superb boxer and his own body punching is absolutely destructive so I expect him to retain his title."

Those views were endorsed by Billy Nelson, who was in Arthur's corner during the Edinburgh champion's early pro fights.

"I think Alex will stop Cook some time in the later rounds," said Nelson. "Arthur is superior to Cook in almost every department. I'm not saying it's going to be easy but Arthur has advantages in boxing ability, punch power, height reach and experience at world level that I believe Cook can't and won't match in Saturday's fight."

Slightly more cautious was Alex's former coach at the Leith Victoria club, veteran Joe Fortune, who said: "I said before that this will be a hard fight for Alex and I stand by that judgment but Alex has got the heart of a lion and I know he is fired up to silence all these knockers who said that he has been handed his world title on a plate.

"That may be true to some extent but only because Joan Guzman chose not to defend the WBO title against Arthur and that was hardly Alex's fault.

"Alex, I think, will outjab Cook because he is taller and has significant height advantages over him, but for me the big thing as always will be that Arthur left hook to the body.

"Luevano exposed Cook's inability to handle ferocious body punching, decking him several times and I am positive that Alex Arthur's left hook to the body is a much more potent punch than even Luevano's."

Similarly, 1962 Commonwealth Games featherweight gold medallist John McDermott, MBE, who was himself a top pro featherweight in the 1960s before guiding a clutch of fighters to titles agreed with his fellow coaches saying: "Everybody knows I'm a huge Alex Arthur fan in the sense that I believe he is a tremendously gifted boxer technically, who also has one of the hardest left-hook body punches I've ever seen in any pro or amateur Scottish fighter. So I have no doubt that Alex will retain his title in Manchester."