LEE MCGREGOR wants to avenge the first loss of his career which he suffered on Friday in Edinburgh.
Fighting in front of his fans at the Meadowbank Sports Centre the Scot came up short against Erik Robles during their thrilling super-bantamweight battle.
After 12 rounds the hand of Robles was raised with the three judges collectively awarding a unanimous decision result for the Mexican. The fight itself ebbed and flowed throughout but in the end Robles had that bit more in the tank and on the front foot to defeat McGregor.
The 26-year-old from Edinburgh gave an indication as to why he believed he lost on the night.
“There were a few issues going into that fight that a lot of people don’t know about, and I was nowhere near 100 per cent,” McGregor explained in quotes published at Edinburgh Evening News. “You need to be 100 per cent going into a fight like that. But it was a fantastic fight, one I loved being involved in and I’m glad the fans enjoyed it.
“I know for a fact, that once I get these issues fixed, then I can beat that guy.”
The former British, Commonwealth and European bantamweight champion last went the 12-round distance against Kash Farooq in 2019. That fight and the one on Friday night resembled one another for their intensity and toe-to-toe action. In the four years since McGregor hasn’t been involved in such testing bouts until Diego Ruiz went the 10-round distance with him in February 2022. Four months ago McGregor returned from an enforced lay-off to win an eight-round contest against Alexis Boureima Kabore.
“The rematch is something I want, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “If you take away that tick-over fight back in March, I had 13 months of inactivity, so momentum wasn’t on my side, and nobody would have blamed me if I had turned it down.
“But I proved once again on Friday night, the warrior that I am. I need to sit down with the team, but I want to put it right.
“How good that fight was, is making me really hungry for the rematch and it’s going to be huge and bigger than it was on Friday. This was my first big show in Edinburgh and look at what I did. The result didn’t go my way but please believe me when I say that I will put it right and I will get that [IBO] belt.”
McGregor’s promoter Nisse Sauerland wants to stage the rematch in Edinburgh but would like McGregor to have a rest first.
“I’d like to do the rematch here,” he said. “I’d give him a month off. It’s not healthy going straight back in. But that’s where the difference is between a champion and a normal fighter. He needs to look at what he did wrong, be critical of himself and work out why. He went 12 rounds full hog but make a little adjustment and he wins that fight. It was close.
“It hasn’t paid off, but people will know his name. They’ll have tuned into Channel 5, maybe a million or so and they’ll now know Lee McGregor. People guard the zero in boxing but if you lose that kind of a fight who cares? Come back and do it again. The story isn’t over.”
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