Lejarraga vs. Metcalf

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Felt like Metcalf being the underdog was off. He was the better boxer. 

Metcalf was the slight underdog with the bookies before his bout with Lejarraga due to 3 reasons... Form going into the bout over the last year... Firstly, Metcalf had lost both of his big opportunities against Ted Cheeseman and Kieron Conway, with Cheeseman knocking him out late and both contests taking place in the last year... Meanwhile, Lejarraga had Won his last 3 contests, with 2 legitimate stoppage victories and these took place against British opposition, Jez Smith and Jack Flatley... Secondly, the fight was taking place in Bilbao, Spain, which is Lejarraga's home... Based on previous fights, it was highly thought that JJ would have to score a victory by either KO/TKO for him to come away with a W, because let's face it, in a closely fought contest, as per this evening's Main Event, the judges tend to favour Lejarraga's aggressive, come forward, take a shot to throw 2 or 3 type work, with lots of pressure applied... Metcalf did really well with his Boxing acumen, foot movement, general ringcraft and overall boxing performance to negate a lot of what Lejarraga tried to achieve on the evening and thirdly, Lejarraga going into the contest was the younger, fresher, hungrier Boxer with what was considered to be the bigger punch out of the two combatants... Personally, I thought that the odds were quite fair, but I myself did consider the bout to be a 50/50 contest and gave Metcalf every chance to pull off the upset, so long as he could stick to the game plan that his team had set out and so long as he hadn't got old in the period between his last competitive contest and the performance he needed to produce in Bilbao on the night... In the end, I thought that JJ Metcalf was a worthy winner! However, the judges made it a very close result when the scores were read out... 🤔💯🥊🥊👊👍🏼

* Edited at 05.20.2022, 6:45 PM ET *