Lee Glover's poser at super bantam

Tipton's Lee Glover is fast becoming a matchmaker's nightmare as the super bantamweight continues to plot his way to the title trail.

Glover takes in his fifth professional contest tonight at Walsall Town Hall doing six, three minute rounds for the first time against Bulgarian opponent Plamen Kostadinov.

But facing a banana skin from Europe is nothing new to the unbeaten 23-year-old, who already has a Bulgarian, Slovakian and a Latvian living in Mansfield on his record.

Delroy Spencer, a 125-fight veteran still doing the rounds at 42, is the sole Englishman to have opposed Glover in the pros - and he was drafted in to replace Vladislav Sagalakov at a few hours notice.

In fact, had it not been for injury and pull outs, 'the Tipton Slasher' would have also faced a Russian and a Frenchman.

There's just isn't the fighters at 8st 10lbs in the Midlands for Glover to face and such problems have already seen him box up at featherweight in the pros, where he won an ABA Midlands title and reached the national semi-finals twice as an amateur.

And it could cause huge problems when the time comes to find a co-challenger for the belt Glover wants by the end of the year - the vacant Midlands super bantamweight title.

He said: "I will box anyone who they put me against, but I don't really know much about my opponent tonight and you never do when they are foreigners.

"You go in with one game plan and, if that doesn't work, then you change it to another."

It shouldn't be too difficult to arrange a fight at super bantam for the area belt - the title has only been contested five times in the last 17 years.

Current Commonwealth flyweight champion Chris Edwards was the last man to take the crown, after stopping Wolverhampton's Neil Read in two rounds back in September 2004.

The belt did enjoy a slight renaissance in the mid-1990's here in the West Midlands with Wolverhampton fighters Matthew Harris and Carl Allen, along with Birmingham's 300-fight pro Peter Buckley, all champions between 1994 and before the title laid dormant for exactly eight years from September 1996.

But the further you go up the ladder, the easier it gets to make matches - there are English, British and Commonwealth champions and the super bantam division even hosted its own eight-man Prizefighter tournament last year.

However, in the Midlands it's slim pickings, as Glover knows only too well.

He said: "It can be a good thing or a bad thing, in a way you can move up faster but, as well, you don't want to move up too quickly.

"Every title means something to you, I want to get to a level with the Midlands title and then push on there."

Tickets for the bill tonight will be available to buy on the door at Walsall Town Hall from when the doors open at 7pm.