Gavin Gwynne was up and about bright and early on Monday morning.
On Saturday night, the former British, Commonwealth and European lightweight champion boxed Cameron Vuong over 10 rounds in Birmingham.
The vast majority of observers believed that Gwynne deserved to have his hand raised. Instead, Vuong maintained his unbeaten record courtesy of a close, disputed unanimous decision.
“As a fighter, you know when you’ve won a fight, do you know what I mean?” Gwynne, 17-4-1 (5 KOs), told BoxingScene as he walked his French bulldog Rocky. “Just fucking gutted more than anything because I knew I’d done more than enough to win. It wasn’t like I just nicked it.
“I’d done more than enough.”
Gwynne put the younger fighter under constant, heavy pressure from the opening bell. Instead of declaring all-out war, Gwynne calmly closed the distance and forced Vuong to work at a higher pace than he would have liked; his presence forced Vuong to throw punches when he didn’t want to.
The inexperienced Vuong, 7-0 (3 KOs), boxed well in patches and deserves immense credit for holding his shape and keeping his discipline throughout the grueling fight, but whenever his back touched the ropes, Gwynne would let his hands go and he reaped the rewards of concentrating on accuracy rather than power.
“I was quite comfy in there and that’s why I wasn’t loading up for the shots,” Gwynne said. “I knew if I’d loaded up for the shots – because he’s a slick operator – he would have seen them coming, and he would have made me miss and countered me. That’s why I wasn’t putting much power in the shots and it was just hitting him with combinations – like, five, six punches at one time.
“Even from round one, I just felt comfortable in there. He didn’t have no power to worry me. I can remember coming back after the first round and saying to Gary [Lockett, my trainer] that he’s in trouble, because, obviously, he didn’t have the power to keep me off him.
“Gary didn’t want me to do that. He wanted me to go behind the jab and then, in the later rounds, you see me getting the jab off and I was pinging him with the jab. Everything went right for me on the night, bar the judges giving me the nod. Do you know what I mean?”
Although the fight was seen as an ambitious for a fighter with just six professional fights, there were very obvious reasons why Vuong’s team chased it.
Gwynne hasn’t been at his best in recent fights, and while they didn’t overlook his ability as a fighter, everybody outside of the Welshman’s camp was guilty of underestimating just how much he had left.
Vuong’s team knew that Gwynne’s size, heart and fitness guaranteed a stern test, but expected that at the relative stages of their careers, their fighter’s speed, flair and talent would carry him to a meaningful, impressive win.
Gwynne, 34, has been involved in the sport for long enough to fully understand the role he had been cast in on Saturday night, but when the final bell rang he had absolutely no doubt that he had done enough to win. He went to the centre of the ring expecting to be announced the winner.
“I must have thrown treble the amount of shots he threw,” he said. “So, even if I landed half of the shots, or a quarter of the shots, I outlanded him no matter what. So, by going off that, he could have never won.
“That’s what I’m saying. It was no way of him winning the fight.
“I watched the fight back yesterday and he was throwing, like, the odd eye-catching shot. People are saying on the internet, ‘Oh, look at Gavin’s face’, but they’ve got to realise, I’m 34. I’m a lot older than him, so I mark up a lot easier.
“And another thing he was doing – he was holding his lead hand out and rubbing it in my face and the referee [Kevin Parker] didn’t say nothing about it. Do you know what I mean? It was one of them; everything was for him. Obviously, the prospect; young up-and-coming fighter.
“I just said to one of my friends, he would have probably had more respect if they gave me the nod. They would have said, ‘Look, it was just too early for him. He took the fight; take the loss on the chin and come back better’.
“He would have had more credit for doing that.”
Gwynne isn’t the type of person to scream, shout and kick up a fuss and, although the decision didn’t go his way, he also isn’t the type of fighter to use the situation to stoke a fake rivalry. His argument is with the judges, not Vuong.
Thirty-six hours after the fight, Gwynne has had time to reflect on what happened and while he believes that, deep down, the 22-year-old Vuong knows he lost the fight, he has gained a great deal of respect for the way he was willing to test himself so early in his career.
“I think he does, going on his social media posts,” he said. “He did drop me a message just saying, ‘Thank you. Great fight and everything. I learned a hell of a lot from that’.
“Nothing but respect. I’ve always got respect for people who I fight or who I’ve fought so just a big respect to him for doing that and I just texted him. I said, ‘Oh, well done’.
“He will only be better for fighting me only in his seventh fight because I’m an old professional. I’ve been there, seen it all, done it all, so, you’ve got to give him a lot of respect for taking the fight.”
In recent times, too many unnecessary, unwarranted rematches have slowed down certain weight divisions, but none who watched the first fight would complain if Gwynne were given an immediate chance to even the score. A return would also give Vuong the chance to show exactly what he learned from the 10 rounds of pressure he was subjected to.
Gwynne isn’t holding his breath for the call to come, but he does believe Vuong will only be given credit if he does decide to get back in the ring with him.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen because his managers are not stupid,” he said about a rematch. “They were stupid enough to put him in the fight in the first place but I don’t think he’s going to get no credibility off any other fight.
“If he does [go in a different direction], they’re all just going to be calling him out because if you go on social media or any other platform, 99.9 per cent of the people said I won the fight. Do you know what I mean? My sister came up to me and she said, even his fans in the toilets were coming up and saying that Gavin won that.
“I don’t know [what will happen]. You never know. It’s just one of them. It’s out of my hands now at the moment. There’s nothing I can do about it. Obviously, I just let my team deal with that. Everyone thought I was past it and I’ve shown that I’m far from past it.
“That was one of my best performances, I think, to date.”
Although he would jump at a rematch, Gwynne isn’t going to rely on it taking place. If it doesn’t happen, it won’t undermine the remainder of his career.
Gwynne is hopeful that his performance against Vuong will remind everyone exactly what he is capable of and open other doors for him. Although Saturday’s fight took place at 139lbs he will be returning to lightweight and would like to get straight back in the title picture.
“No, it doesn’t bother me at all, to be honest – I box for the love of the sport,” he said.
“Some of these fighters box to look good on social media and everything else. I box because I love fighting. I want to box the best.
“Boxing these prospects – they said he was the next best thing out of Britain. I just went and beat him. So, what does that say?
“I think I deserve a title shot after that. Obviously, I’ve gone back down in the rankings now. They haven’t done me any favours in that aspect but everyone knows I’m ranked a lot higher than what it is.
“My stock has only gone up from that and his stock has gone down. Like I said, he won’t get more credibility from taking that win. The only credibility he will get is if he takes the rematch.
“Good money fights as well, because they know I’m never in a boring fight. So I always come and give it some every time I fight. So there’s always big fights out there for me.
“But every fight now has just got to make sense for me. Financially, it’s got to be right.”
The fight was Gwynne’s first under the eye of Lockett, and while they didn’t return to Wales with a victory, their partnership did deliver. Although he eventually wore down Emiliano Marsili to win the European title in December 2023, Gwynne wasn’t at his best against the Italian veteran and, in March, he suffered a badly damaged eye during his fourth-round stoppage loss to Mark Chamberlain.
He looked revitalised against Vuong, and is looking forward to seeing how much better he can get with Lockett in his corner.
“Gary said to me he’s seen that sparkle back in my eyes,” he said. “Do you know what I mean? He said if I wasn’t performing in the gym he would have told me. He said, ‘Look Gavin, everyone’s saying you’re shot. In the European title fight, you didn’t look the best. In your last fight, you were stopped by Mark Chamberlain. Everyone’s saying that you’re over the hill but the way you’ve been performing in the gym, you’re better than you were before’.
“And that’s our first fight together. Imagine our second – we’re going to be even better.”
John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79
