Watch Fight Night International live on Sky Sports Arena from 8pm on Friday
Saturday 12 October 2019 08:02, UK
Belfast's Tommy McCarthy takes on Fabio Turchi in Trento on Friday night, with Reece Bellotti also on the Sky Live bill.
It's an intriguing match for the WBC International cruiserweight title held by Turchi, with promoters OPI and Matchroom Italy having high hopes for him.
This new Italian boxing vehicle needs a figurehead and with Andrea Scarpa, Devis Boschiero and Emanuele Blandamura all losing in big fights on these shows, a lot now depends on Turchi.
He's therefore under a bit of pressure and he certainly was back at the end of November on the inaugural Matchroom Italy show, where he took to the ring following those defeats for Boschiero and Scarpa.
Turchi really had to win against Tony Conquest, or the whole show would have been a disaster from an Italian standpoint. He got the win to successfully defend his WBC International Silver title before upgrading to the WBC International in his last fight against Sami Enbom.
He's at 15 with the WBC (the WBC title is vacant; it was supposed to be on the line for Briedis vs Glowacki but in the end, it wasn't). Yves Ngabu is European champion and defends against Lawrence Okolie on October 26, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
McCarthy was a very good international amateur, going deep in all major competitions apart from the Olympics (he didn't qualify).
The early stages of his pro career went well. He beat the likes of Courtney Fry and former British champ Jon Lewis Dickinson, and then lost on points to Matty Askin in a British title eliminator. That was in November 2016 and his career just completely stagnated after that.
It shouldn't have done because he put up a good performance against Askin but he just couldn't get any meaningful fights (even though he did some good sparring) until he signed with Mark Dunlop late last year.
They took the fight with Richard Riakporhe at the start of March and on paper, McCarthy was the favourite but on the night his inactivity showed and he was stopped in four.
Hopefully we'll see a different McCarthy, the real McCarthy, tonight.
Reece Bellotti takes on Francesco Grandelli on the undercard at the Festival dello Sport on Friday - watch Fight Night International live on Sky Sports Arena from 8pm.
