I agree with this 100 %, George Groves talked about this in his recent boxing life stories interview, he specifically mentioned Anthony Ogogo and Luke Campbell. Campbell won Olympic gold at Bantamweight and turned professional a year later as a Lightweight, when he was almost 26 years old. Had he turned over at the same time as Groves, at the end of 2008 I have no doubt that Campbell would have been a world champion and possibly at multiple weights. Hopefully he retires now, even though he has only had 24 fights as professional, he has a lot of miles on the clock and moving up weight divisions would just diminish the natural advantages he once held even further.
No. He is not retiring as Tank, Devin and Teo all need opponents they are NOT going to fight themselves anytime soon. Expect a fight between one of the champions soon, Matchroom will just throw him to other promoters if needed to cash in. Luke will also get paid well.
Ohh, if he wish, might cash out as a journeyman. Initially well paid journeyaman, between cash fights might get some bums to finish to get better looking record numbers. Later less paid journeyman and then low paid journeyman. He is completely done. If he had agreed to fight vs Garcie in U.S then he should knew: 2 opportunities: finish Garcie in distance or become a journeyamn. He had failed and now is a journeyman not ranked today even in boxrec top 15. He also is 0-2 in major tittle fights vs Linares and Loma.
He won't retire on that loss, and shouldn't either. I see him going up to 140, where there are several domestic fights for him at least 2-3 levels below the one he had last night. Very winnable fights, for quite good money. If he beats a Ritson for e.g. and then gets another win at Euro level which is not beyond him at all, he could have another fight for very good money at world level. As an opponent yes, but I think he will want to try his luck at 140 before calling it quits for good. Just a guess from me, but I don't think he has earned huge money so far so will want to carry on if there are respectable opportunities for him, and there will be.
He won`t get a rematch with Garcia, the only big name fighter tat he can beat is Haney, if he can`t get Haney there will no option but to retire, he didn`t look his best v Garcia and he`s only going to get older.
135 is stacked right now with young hungry talent so he'll only be used as a gatekeeper there. I think 140 would be his best bet if he continues fighting. He reminds me of a smaller weight version of Luis Ortiz both in terms of fighting style and how his career has panned out. Good enough to win a world title but there are better fighters ahead of him.
It was just bad luck and maybe not being promoted well, why Luke Campbell hasn't won a world title. He's a better fighter than Anthony Crolla and Terry Flanagan. If Hearn hadn't got the Dazn deal and signed Haney. Campbell would've probably have got a WBC vacant title shot in Hull against Zaur Abdullaev or Javier Fortuna and won. Just like other good fighters such as Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Martin Murray, Matthew Macklin, Andrey Fonfara.. hes just had the hardest route to a title. He didn't get it on a plate like Joshua, Khan, Haney, Wilder and all these manufactured guys did.
I don't know how so called boxing fans can say 'retire!' Just because he has losses to the best. It's his job, which hes very good at, hes top 10 in the world in his weight class, he hasn't taken too much damage in his career, And there's a lot more money to be made in this weightclass. All he needs is a bit of shrewd matchmaking/ a bit of luck with a weaker world champ and he'd win a world title at 135 or 140. There's still big fights ahead for Campbell.
At the start of his pro career. Campbell was fighting in Hull a lot, building his fanbase there. I don't know why that all stopped? Home advantage is very important in boxing/sport.
I would say he's got a better chance of winning a title at 135,one mans opinion of course.agree though lesser fighters than Luke have won world titles.it will probably come down to where the money is for him now if he does carry on and lightweight has a lot of buzz around it just now.
Early on in his career he looked like a boy fighting men. Despite being 26, he had a very amateur style and didn't adapt to the pros like many thought he would. He improved after the Mendy loss but the division is stacked. Weird that he won gold at bantamweight and turned pro as a fairly big light weight.
I suppose it boils down to what luke wants out of the sport. If he stays in the sport he can probably still achieve more in way of picking up titles as he's got a c/w title previously but I'm sure we can all agree that he's got a euro in him. He can still definatly make money out of boxing but the big prize which is to be a world champ, seems slim now
