Steve Gago plans a road to the title starting with Blake Minto in Australia on September 7

Australian welterweight Steve Gago (14-2, 7 KOs) will get a chance to showcase his skills on the national stage when he faces Blake Minto (15-6-2, 4 KOs) over 10 rounds at the HBF Arena in Perth, Western Australia. on September 7.

The 35-year-old southpaw will feature on the undercard of Thammanoon Niyomtrong’s WBA strawweight bout against Alex Winwood, the entire show will be broadcast live and free of charge on 7plus as part of the Premier Boxing Series.

Perth hosted the IBF lightweight title fight between Vasiliy Lomachenko and George Kambosos Jr in May, but before that the West Australian capital had not had a major boxing fight since the days of Danny Green.

Unlike the Lomachenko-Kambosos card, the Niyomtrong-Winwood show, promoted by Green Machine Promotions and Dragon Fire Boxing, is loaded with West Australian talent.

Gago is proud to be a part of it.

“It’s a very good card,” Gago told The Ring. “It has been like this for a long time. We haven’t had a fight card as good as this in Perth since Lomachenko and Kambosos actually, so this is good for Perth. It also follows the entire crowd behind the home boxers. It’s going to be an amazing night. And to see Alex fight for his world title, I think it’s going to be great.

“Boxing here has not been this good since the days of Danny Green. Danny put Perth back on the map and now he’s found a great way to make it all happen again.

Steve Gago – Photo courtesy of Dragon Fire Boxing

“After the whole Loma card here, it shows that Perth is an amazing city to fight. Let’s bring the action back here.”

Minto, who hails from Toronto, south of Newcastle in New South Wales, may have a few losses on his record, but he has beaten some good people and been stopped just once. Gago believes that he has the perfect style to bring out the best in himself.

“I saw a small episode of him last night fighting famous people,” said Gago. “He’s tough again. He likes to come forward, he can punch, he likes to throw combinations, so he moves well. I think it’s an interesting fight. It’s been a long time since I’ve fought such a good fight. I’m very excited and can’t wait to see how we go. I think it will be an uphill battle.”

Gago has now won two fights in a row since his 10-round unanimous decision against IBF junior welterweight champion Liam Paro three years ago. Gago, who hasn’t made it to 140 pounds since his second pro belt, was hurt early in the Paro fight but was able to continue until the final bell.

“Actually, I ended up with three discs,” said Gago. “All of that happened, I think, from the third round on. I kept fighting, but I think you can probably see in the corner that I was saying, ‘I think you can see that something is wrong.’ Every time I moved on my front foot there was a sharp, shooting pain up and down my spine, and I knew it was something serious. I had never heard anything like that before.”

Boxing hard and adrenaline high, it was only after he returned to his hotel room that the risk of injury really surfaced.

“You can see from my movement and the volume of my punches from the first round to the fourth or fifth round that I can’t do anything,” said Gago. “The punch I could throw without hurting my back was a jump hook, or a javelin hook. It relieved a little pressure on my back. Anything after that was just killing me.

“After the war, when I went back to the hotel and calmed down, I was taking painkillers, trying to sleep, getting up, trying to pack, and then we went to the airport, during the COVID. It was crazy.”

Now that he is fully recovered, Gago is committed to making a run at the world title and the first step is defeating Minto. The WBC is the preferred option, with San Antonio’s Mario Barrios (29-2, 18 KOs) holding the belt.

“I’m hoping to break into the top 25, maybe even the top 15 in the WBC, and then get back into international fights,” said Gago, who is currently ranked 37th by the Mexico-based sanctioning body.

“I would like to fight in Japan and eventually progress quickly, hopefully to a world title. That would be great. The WBC looks after me well; I’m on the right track, so the main goal is to get in the top 15, top 25, and then see what we can do from there.”