Lee McGregor and Nathaniel Collins to meet on Taylor-Essuman undercard

This Saturday will see an interesting bout between Lee McGregor and Nathaniel Collins in Glasgow.

The pair will challenge each other or the vacant WBC silver title as part of the undercard for the match between Josh Taylor and Ekow Essuman.

Promoter Frank Warren has said that the fight between the pair will be a ‘crackerjack’.

He added: “Both of these men have highly impressive credentials, with Nathaniel winning British, Commonwealth and EBU Silver before illness took him out of the game for a period. Lee won so much, so early, becoming Commonwealth, British, and European champion in the fastest time for a British fighter.”

He went on: “His career came off the boil for a while, but he seized his moment over in Riyadh at the end of last year by defeating Isaac Lowe and now he is properly in the featherweight frame.”

Nathaniel Collins

Collins, 16-0 (7), comes from Bearsden, Scotland, and goes by the nickname of ‘The Nightmare’. Aged 28, Collins has fought the entirety of his career in the UK, turning professional in 2018 with a points decision over Lee Connelly in Paisley, Scotland.

A southpaw, Collins last fought in February when he outpointed Darwing Martinez over eight rounds in Glasgow. While Martinez had a record of 8-26-2, Collins’s most-prominent fight to date was arguably his twelve-round majority-decision win over Zak Miller in November 2023 in Manchester. That fight against Miller marked Collins’s second defence of his British featherweight title.

Lee McGregor

Fellow Scot Lee McGregor, 15-1-1 (11), hails from Edinburgh and returns to Scotland following a unanimous decision over Isaac Lowe in Riyadh in December. McGregor turned professional in 2017 and has won his last three fights since losing a decision to Erik Robles Ayala in 2023.

A former European champion, McGregor’s sole loss, to Ayala, came while competing for the IBO super-bantamweight title.

The Face-Off

The pair weighed in this afternoon ahead of tomorrow’s fight at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow. Collins tipped the scales at 125.6lbs, while rival McGregor came in a little lighter at 125.4lbs.