Stevie Collins Jr to change weight for new title fight

Stevie Collins Jr will go right back into a title fight when he returns to the ring.

The Dubliner was defeated by Steven Ward last month in a BUI Celtic light heavyweight title fight but ‘The Wolfhound’ will now do battle for the same belt at a different weight this coming November.

Collins [12(4)-2(0)-1] will face Scottish cruiserweight champion Jay McFarlane [6(3)-3(0)] for the BUI Celtic title at 200lbs on a Kynoch Boxing show at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow on Friday November 30th.

It’s a relatively rapid return to big fights for 28-year-old Collins who was left disappointed by his 79-75 defeat to Ward at Windsor Park.

Collins, who felt he won the fight on the Carl Frampton v Luke Jackson undercard, returned to training quickly with coach Steven O’Rourke at St Michael’s Inchicore.

While the 25lbs jump from light heavyweight is not ideal, cruiserweight looks to be better suited for the Castleknock puncher who was said to be drained for his Irish title fight versus Paddy McDonagh last year and missed weight at the first attempt for the Ward.

Moving up in weight, Collins is facing a man coming down in weight – having tipped the scales at 254lbs as recently as 12 months ago.

Turning pro in his teens, McFarlane was initially styled as Britain’s youngest heavyweight but suffered mixed results early on. After being outpointed on the Gennady Golovkin v Danny Jacobs undercard in New York last year, McFarlane then suffered a pair of defeats to David Howe which bookended a notable win over Fijian Jone Volau.

Moving down to cruiserweight, the 20-year-old Glaswegian is on a three-fight winning streak and claimed the Scottish title last time out, in June, when he outpointed another Fijian in Edinburgh-based Ratu Latianara.

The eight-round fight will be for a belt last held by Collins’s old gym-mate Ian Tims – who outpointed Michael Sweeney for the strap back in 2015.

Loughlinstown’s Jay Byrne is also provisionally down on the bill to face Marc Kerr for the BBBoC Celtic light middleweight title – a bout which was meant to take place last weekend before injured forced Kerr out.#

Photo Credit: Ricardo Guglielminotti – The Fighting Irish (@ThefIrish)