Brazilian lightweight fighter Beatriz Ferreira impressed in her first world title fight in just her fifth professional fight as she carved out a pivotal victory over Argentinian opponent Yanina Del Carmen Lescano to become the new IBF lightweight champion. Peter McGrail, who main-evented in Matchroom’s “NXT GEN” card at the Exhibition Centre in Liverpool, also overcame his substitute opponent Mark Leach. The fight card was held on Saturday, April 27th.
While Peter McGrail (9-1, 5 KO’s) was originally supposed to fight American super bantamweight contender Ja’Rico O’Quinn (17-1-1, 9 KO’s), who had previously upset McGrail by knocking him out while losing on the scorecards, but O’Quinn withdrew from the match due to “personal family matters” which resulted in British fighter Mark Leach (18-4-1, 4 KO’s) to step in.
As the headline of the NXT GEN card, meant to feature mainly up-and-coming fighters signed to Matchroom, McGrail did not disappoint as he widely won most, if not all, the ten scheduled rounds against Leach to win by unanimous decision (UD). The scorecards depicted McGrail’s dominance with scores of 99-91 twice, and 100-90.
Though Peter McGrail won quite easily, Mark Leach proved tougher than expected, managing to make it to final tenth round without suffering a single knockdown―despite the pressure that McGrail put on him and the fact he took the fight on late notice. However, Leach could not muster up much of a threat in response to McGrail, and his most impressive outing on the night was his ability not to be stopped or knocked out.
With his UD victory complete, McGrail is aiming for a rematch with Ja’Rico O’Quinn―who still remains the first and only fighter to defeat the rising British contender. An alternative to McGrail revenging his loss is a shot at the vacant British title at super bantamweight, which would potentially pit McGrail against fellow high-rated British contenders such as Liam Davies (16-0, 8 KO’s), Shabaz Masoud (12-0, 4 KO’s) or Dennis McCann (15-0-1, 8 KO’s); all of whom are currently undefeated and considered the best British contenders at 122 lbs.
At the women’s lightweight division, a new champion has emerged with Beatriz Ferreira (5-0, 2 KO’s) earning the plaudits after defeating Argentinian challenger Yanina del Carmen Lescano (14-4, 4 KO’s) for the vacant IBF lightweight title. Though their title bout was scheduled for ten rounds, it took Ferreira just six rounds after the match was stopped early by the referee after Lescano suffered a cut that left her unable to continue. Beatriz Ferreira won by technical decision as a result, with the judges’ scorecards of 59-55 twice and 58-58 being enough for her to grab a career-defining victory.
Aside from becoming a world champion for the first time, Ferreira is also the second women’s lightweight champion to emerge within a month with Rhiannon Dixon (10-0, 1 KO’s) just recently conquering the vacant WBO title approximately two weeks ago. Both the WBO and IBF titles had been recently vacated by Katie Taylor (23-1, 6 KO’s), who is expected to release the rest of her titles as she currently still holds the WBA and WBC titles at both 135 lbs and 140 lbs―which is not allowed according to the sanctioning bodies’ rules of a fighter holding titles in two separate weight classes.
The upcoming forfeiture of the rest of Taylor’s 135 lbs titles leaves Beatriz Ferreira with an opportunity to potentially collect the other titles, though it remains to be seen against whom. Ferreira’s potential journey to become a unified or even undisputed lightweight champion will be temporarily stalled, as she is set to compete for Brazil in the 2024 Paris Olympics, but there seem to be candidates for Ferreira to potentially fight for another world title in her next professional fight; particularly IBO champion Caroline Dubois (9-0, 5 KO’s), in whom Ferreira has expressed great interest in potentially fighting.
