Eight years ago today: Thomas Edward "Tommy/Mac Attack" McCarthy vs. Matthew "Matty/Assassin" Askin

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BBBofC cruiserweight title final eliminator.

In the grand scheme of things, no more significant or momentous an occasion than it sounds by that brief description. A pair of decent British* two-hundred pounders duking it out for not even a piece of domestic hardware, but for the right to vie for one. For some of us, it holds a more special place (.....), but for a casual international audience this isn't a major known event - you either happened to be tuned into BoxNation that Saturday afternoon in late November of 2016, or this fine little donnybrook passed you by.

*Tommy is Jamaican-Irish, but hailing from the North makes him technically part of the same UK as his Yorkie rival, fully an Englishman.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe the unbeaten Belfast man - slightly the younger in the match-up, and facing a 1½″ height and 2½″ reach deficit - was the slight favorite heading in despite only a third as much professional experience and none in the way of championships (whereas Askin was coming off a three year reign as English cruiser titlist). Punters therefore can't have been happy a few rounds in...

It seemed by rights he was done for by the 4th when Askin dropped him twice, but he managed to hang tough and claw his way into the contest again - making the second half close but not able to convince the judges to pull him up from that early points hole. At one point, as the 9th round wound down, McCarthy looked to have a chance for a big turnaround when Askin was badly shook up by a dash-in left hook, but the bell intervened before any more could be made of it. The championship rounds unraveled a bit into anticlimactic disorder as each man succumbed to fatigue.

Askin went on to capture the British cruiser belt, vanquishing a third consecutive unbeaten opponent (McCarthy was #2) in Welsh prospect Craig "The Kid" Kennedy and making one successful defense over Scottish slugger Stephen Simmons before dropping it to Lawrence Okolie in 2018 ...controversially, to say the least. Okolie had three points deducted and many fans believe he should have been disqualified; and certainly not gotten the decision. Nobody would have argued with Askin chasing a rematch. Instead he called it a day, meaning McCarthy was among his last bouts.

Not so the other way. Tommy is still banging on despite accruing five more since the Askin defeat (four of those by stoppage), and ultimately elected to bypass the British and English titles both in favor of a nine month EBU reign with a successful defense. He is penciled in for action this coming February on a card in Ulster Hall, opponent TBA.

 

Might've been worth running this back sometime in the year or two following. Not that it was a disputed outcome; the commentators had it closer than what the official judges turned in but acknowledged the rightful winner in Askin. Still, could have been a fun rematch for the BBBofC title as McCarthy kept developing had Askin not run afoul (see what I did there? ) of a certain octopus...