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British featherweight prospect Jordan Gill was expected to romp in a Saturday NXTGEN matchup with lightly-regarded Mexican fighter Enrique Tinoco, but everything went wrong for Gill, and Tinoco left Nottingham with an eighth round stoppage victory.
Gill (23-1, 7 KO) was dropped three times, all on body shots, before trainer Dave Coldwell pulled him out of what had become an un-winnable fight after eight rounds.
The 24-year-old Gill said after the fight that he’d had food poisoning all day, and simply wasn’t able to take any decent body shots from Tinoco (18-5-4, 13 KO). If you watched the fight, it’s completely believable — Gill was never incapacitated by a wicked liver punch or anything like that, but when Tinoco got him to the body, he went down three times. He also got up every time, and did not want Coldwell to stop the fight when he did.
Now, he reveals he also suffered a broken hand in the process of the fight, and vows to return better, saying he’ll ask for a rematch with Tinoco:
“I struggled with illness all day and was flat from the start,” he wrote on social media. “I had too much pride to withdraw so close before, and things went from bad to worse when I fractured my right hand early on.
“Credit to Tinoco who brought his best! We live by our decisions. I’ll be back a better fighter like the champions before me that have taken losses. Thanks for the support and messages! I’ll be begging Eddie Hearn for an immediate rematch when healed.”
We’ll see if he demands the rematch with Tinoco in time, but for now, this is the attitude you want to see from a downed prospect. If he goes after the man who beat him, and he can get revenge against Tinoco, he’ll show something. It’s something Amir Khan, for instance, just never did when Breidis Prescott shocked him back in 2008, and a lot of critics never forgot that.