Ellesmere Port star Paul Butler gets his first taste of Mexico when he takes on hard-hitting Ruben Montoya at the Liverpool Echo Arena on Saturday, December 7th.
The 24-year-old makes the first defense of his WBO Intercontinental Super-Flyweight title on the title-packed card alongside Liverpool stars Paul Smith, Stephen Smith, Liam Smith, Derry Mathews and Joe Selkirk.
One of Britain’s best young fighters, Butler is in hot form as he goes into his fifth fight this year with knockout wins over Anwer Alfadli, Yaqub Kareem and Najah Ali, and showing he can go the championship distance last time out by defeating Chilean Miguel Gonzalez.
Montoya, from Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas, has stopped eight out of twelve opponents with only one points loss and a draw. The 27-year-old is also a former Mexican champion.
Butler, who is known as the ‘Baby Faced Assassin’ – the same nickname as his hero the Mexican great Marco Antonio Barrera – is looking forward to a battle with Montoya as he pushes towards the world stage.
“I’ve seen a bit of Montoya and he looks tough and strong and it could turn out to be a bit of a war against him,” Said Butler.
“He looks like your typical Mexican, strong and aggressive, and will give it a good go, he won’t be coming over here to roll over so I’m going in expecting a right hard fight against him,”
“I’ll look to keep him on the end of my jab and start breaking him down with body shots and ideally I want to stop him instead of it going the full distance,”
“I’m excited to be going in against my first Mexican since turning pro, it’s like a rights of passage to get your first Mexican fighter out of the way so I’m looking forward to taking him on. They’ll be more in my career as their are plenty of Mexicans, Filipinos and Thais at my weight,”
“I was a bit frustrated last time against Gonzalez who I thought would come forward more but he ended up being cagey and on the backfoot, on a positive note I did the full twelve rounds at a good pace and that was great experience.”
Butler, who also holds the British and Commonwealth titles, is also excited that the Vacant WBA Intercontinental belt will be up for grabs.
“It’s nice to collect a new belt after a fight and I aim to win this belt to go alongside my British, Commonwealth and WBO Intercontinental titles,”
“Although they are nice to look at, they are important titles to get ranked as I build towards a world title shot and ultimately that is the title I want to win.”
The Liverpool Echo Arena show is headlined by Paul Smith’s defence of his British Super-Middleweight title against Luke Blackledge; Stephen Smith’s British Super-Featherweight title defence against Gary Sykes and Liam Smith’s defence of his British Light-Middleweight title.
Liverpool’s big-hitting, all-action, star Derry Mathews features in an exciting showdown when he challenges the tough Irish battler and WBO European Lightweight Champion Stephen Ormond.
A further big title fight added to the card sees a potential thriller between the unbeaten Joe Selkirk and Oldham’s hard-hitting Ronnie Heffron for the Vacant WBO European Light-Middleweight title.
The undercard will feature Ellesmere Port’s fast-rising lightweight Matty Fagan; top unbeaten Welsh talents Craig Evans (super-featherweight) and Liam Williams (middleweight) will both feature and making his debut for Queensberry Promotions will be Stoke welterweight Josh McLaren who will be looking to make a big impression. Completing the card will be Manchester’s Liam Cullen (cruiserweight) and Ciaran McVarnock (featherweight).
