{"id":818591,"date":"2026-10-30T11:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T11:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818591\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T11:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T11:12:08","slug":"tony-bellew-names-the-biggest-underachiever-in-british-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/818591\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew names ‘the biggest underachiever in British boxing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Bellew<\/a> has named his \u201cbiggest underachiever in British boxing\u201d, despite him becoming a decorated amateur and challenging for world honours in the professional ranks.<\/p>\n

Conversely, Bellew would perhaps consider himself an overachiever, or at least someone who was fiercely committed to becoming a world champion.<\/p>\n

He did so in 2016, claiming the WBC cruiserweight title with a third-round finish over Illunga Makabu<\/a>, despite suffering a sixth-round stoppage defeat to Adonis Stevenson in his previous attempt at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

The Liverpudlian therefore exited the sport after having achieved his ultimate goal, whereas his old GB teammate, Frankie Gavin, could not quite say the same for himself.<\/p>\n

During his illustrious amateur career, Gavin became Britain\u2019s first world champion while also claiming gold in the Commonwealth Games and European Championships.<\/p>\n

The Birmingham man was then tipped to become an Olympic champion at Athens 2008, only to miss weight and rule himself out of competition.<\/p>\n

Even as a professional, Gavin seemed to lack discipline and, following a sixth-round stoppage defeat to then-IBF champion Kell Brook<\/a> in 2015, there would be no further opportunities for the talented welterweight to fulfil his full potential.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Fight Your Corner<\/a>, Bellew said that, even now, Gavin is the first who springs to mind when discussing underachievers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always think of Frankie. When we were all starting \u2013 wow, he had such a start. He looked amazing, but the pro game is just a different beast.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the biggest underachiever in British boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gavin became a British champion and defeated a selection of domestic rivals but, considering his amateur success, this should never have been the pinnacle of his pro career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew has named his \u201cbiggest underachiever in British boxing\u201d, despite him becoming a decorated amateur and challenging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-818591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}