Anthony Yarde v Lyndon Arthur
Anthony Yarde and Lyndon Arthur break down each other’s most difficult fights ahead of April 11 clash
Anthony Yarde will face Lyndon Arthur in an intriguing British light-heavyweight battle on April 11 at the O2 Arena.
The domestic rivals meet on the undercard of another exciting UK scrap – Daniel Dubois vs Joe Joyce.
In their most notable fights late last year, Yarde and Arthur were put through the mill by tough opponents.
Yarde jumped up in class and suffered an eleventh-round knockout defeat at the hands of WBO world champion Sergey Kovalev, while Arthur survived a scare but beat Emmanuel Anim on points to claim the Commonwealth title.
In round eight of Yarde’s defeat to Kovalev, the Brit badly hurt the Russian and nearly stopped him, before ultimately running out of energy and being stopped himself.
In round eight of Arthur’s win over Anim, the Brit was staggered by his unfancied Ghanaian foe, but recovered to win the decision.
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When asked about the Anim fight, Arthur admitted to talkSPORT.com: “It wasn’t my best performance, sub-par. So I’m looking to obviously perform better than that.
“Emmanuel was tough though. He was better than I expected him to be. I’ve never been in a situation where you hit someone and they get back up and are ready to stay in and fight again.
“That was new to me, another box ticked for myself. We’ve got that, watched the fight back, seen what we did and moved on.
“Before that fight I’d never been over six rounds before. In my head I’ve ticked the box of doing the 12 rounds and finishing strong from the 12 rounds.
“Getting in with an opponent that’s throwing back a lot more than most of the other opponents have been.
“And I guess just being in the ring, being in a big situation. I’ve done it now, I know what to expect. I’m ready. It’s gonna be a fun fight and I’m excited for it. There’s nothing that can faze me.”
Despite not seeing the bout back in October, Yarde had his own opinion of Arthur vs Anim.
He told talkSPORT.com: “I didn’t watch that fight, I only heard about it after this fight got made.
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“My trainer/manager Tunde [Ajayi] is the one that told me he fought a Ghanaian.
“I didn’t know. Since the fight’s been announced between me and him I’ve seen some highlights. I saw the highlights of him and the Ghanaian guy.
“It looked like the Ghanaian guy put some work on him for some of the rounds. But he caught the guy with a good shot and dropped him. It was a good fight.
“But my fight was completely different levels of opponent. I feel like that’s gonna help me in this fight.”
Asked if he feels he’ll take a great deal of experience from his loss to Kovalev, Yarde added: “Definitely. I feel like every fight I’ve had up to this point played a big part to where I’m at in my career right now.
“I always look at all the other fights because that’s what got me to the world stage.
“Each fight I’ve had I’ve taken experience from. I’ve been seven rounds twice and eleven rounds once.
“I’ve been in there with arguably the best light-heavyweight that there’s been for the last however many years.”
Meanwhile Arthur said of the Kovalev vs Yarde clash: “I was a fan of him that day. The eighth round was a close round. I’m sure everybody in the UK was screaming, ‘Get the knockout, get the knockout.’
“But these things happen and people bounce back.”
Arthur concluded by talking up the April 11 fight with Yarde, which is an eagerly anticipated step-up for him in his career.
“It’s exciting. It’s a great British rival. I don’t believe it would’ve happened if he didn’t get beat off Kovalev.
“He’d have been a world champion and probably went on to bigger things but we’re here now and yeah, it’s exciting.
“I can’t wait, it’s a big event. It probably could be a main event fight if it wasn’t for Dubois and Joyce.
“I guess it’s a sense of relief because it’s my chance to catapult myself onto the scene properly.”
https://talksport.com/sport/boxing/6...arthur-fights/
