Taylor takes title in 10 round war

Written by Joe Hill

Photo’s by Danny Hill

Dennis Hobson brought a night of “Mayhem” to the Sheffield Octagon, giving us 9 bouts of boxing including two IBO youth title fights.

Dronfield’s Lewis Taylor (13-0-0) (11st 5lb) was up against Barnsley’s Ben Davies (5-0-1) (11st 5lb) over 10 x 3 minute rounds for the middleweight IBO youth title. Throughout the first two rounds both fighters showed equal expertise, exchanging equal blows with Davies being slightly out done by Taylor’s jab towards the end of the second round.  In the third and fourth both continued to battle it out head to head, each landing clean punches with Taylor just doing one better every time. This continued through the fifth and sixth until the seventh round when Taylor took a step back letting Davies do most of the work, Davies took advantage of this and came out on fire in the eighth determined for a win.  Taylor came out with a fresh head in the 9th though and again outboxed Davies for the remainder of the fight with the judges scoring it 97/94, 97/95, 100/92 in favour of Lewis Taylor. Suffice it to say Davies took the fight with only two weeks’ notice, given more time to prepare the outcome may have gone the other way; the only way to find out would be a rematch.

Fighting for the super middleweight IBO youth title, both hailing from Sheffield was Liam Cameron (15-3-0) (11st 13lb) and Wayne Reed (10-7-0) (11st 12lb) over 10 x 3 minute rounds. Another close fight where both gave it their all, while Reed came out all guns blazing in the opening rounds, landing enough to keep his opponent on their toes. Cameron opted for a more relaxed approach, defended well and placed every punch perfectly. Cameron started to wear Reed down as early as the third round and a good combination of punches in the fourth saw Reed receive nasty swelling to his right eye. In the fifth Cameron worked on Reed’s eye which opened up into a nasty cut but a gallant Reed countered well and as Cameron started tire Reed took advantage. Reed then fought the better fight over the next few rounds with Cameron not doing much more damage until the last round where he almost finished things. The fight was scored a fare 98/92, 98/90, 98/92 to Liam Cameron.

On the undercard we had lightweight Jamie Sampson (8-1-0) (10st 2lb) looking to further his record against journeyman Ibrar Riaz  (4-57-2) (9st 13lb), a long 6 x 3 minute rounds saw Sampson take control and keep calm and composed against a trying Riaz who struggled throughout against a younger and fitter fighter. Riaz had a few moments in the later rounds but was no contest for Sampson who won 60 points to 55.

Also fighting was Ross “The Boss” Burkinshaw (11-5-2) (8st 11lb) against Malkhaz Tatrishvili (7-5-0) (8st 12lb), Tatrishvili definitely gave it a go against a more experienced fighter but was no match for Burkinshaw with the fight being stopped 2:05mins into the fifth round.

Sheffield’s Nassa Brothers brought the crowd with them on the night, Pharys Nassa (1-0-0) (8st 8lb) took on Khvicha Gigolashvili (2-4-0) (8st 13lb), Pharys being the better boxer took a 59 to 57 points win while older brother Ramzy Nassa (1-0-0) (8st 8lb) had an easy 60/54 points win over David Kvaratskhelia (3-8-0) (8st 7lb).

Bradford’s Femi Fehintola (24-3-0) (10st 1lb) met an awkward fighter in Newcastle’s Dougie Curran (9-25-3) (10st), Curran who’s tougher than his record suggests gave his all but Fehintola always gave more and won by a close 58 points to 57, Hassan Ahmed (5-0-0) (8st 4lb) remains undefeated beating Francis Croes (1-25-0) (8st 5lb) by a  40/37 points win and Uzair Najib (2-0-0) (9st 1lb) was up against Aivaras Balsys (1-8-0) (9st 1lb), Balsys was no match for Najib who ended proceedings 2:45mins into the second round.

McDonnell too classy for Pozo

Written by Danny Hill

Photos by Javed Iqbal (follow on twitter @JIfotos)

Saturday night saw a real mixed bag of results at the Hillsborough Leisure Centre, Sheffield.  There were 11 fights on the bill in all, with the headline act been European Bantamweight Title holder Jamie McDonnell (18-2-1) who was taking on spaniard Ivan Pozo (32-6-1).

The 32 year old wasn’t expected to give Doncaster lad McDonnell too much to worry about after some recent bad results, against poor opposition.  However, he had come in as a late replacement for Malik Bouziane so often these changes can make things much more interesting.  Bouziane had pulled out through injury giving Jamie only around 10 days to prepare for Pozo.

Despite this setback, everything was alright on the night. McDonnell frustrated his opponent in the first round with some classy boxing and used his jab to take control of the fight early doors.  It was obvious by the end of the round that McDonnell had too much for Pozo.  The second round started off similar to the first with McDonnell again controlling before eventually ending the fight with a fierce body shot.  McDonnell pushed Pozo away from him to create a bit of space and then hit him with a series of punches before landing a left hook just below the rib cage of the Spaniard sending him to one knee.  Pozo struggled to breathe, was in visible pain and looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.  He couldnt get up after 10, bringing the fight to an early conclusion.

McDonnell admitted after the fight that he would like to get some more rounds under his belt before jumping up to world level which is very tough at this division.  Any fight above his current ranking is going to be hard, but he proved he has the maturity to do it on saturday night and I agree that to jump in at the deep end would be career suicide at this moment in time.  At 25 he doesn’t need to rush into anything but it will certainly be interesting to see who he fights next as he certainly has some exciting times ahead.

The shock of the night came when up and coming heavyweight Tom Dallas (15-1-0) took on and lost to Matt Skelton (25-6-0).  Many expected an easy win for Dallas with Skelton been his senior by nearly two decades at 45 years of age.  I expected Skelton to be a tough opponent as he has been in with some tough heavyweights and despite his years he hasn’t had the number of fights as many his age.  I did expect Dallas to have that extra edge though as the younger man.  Also, Skelton had been out of the ring since October 2010 and at his age you would’ve expected ring rust to have set in a bit.

As a former British, Commonwealth and European title holder it certainly seems to have been a bad ‘pick’ for Tom Dallas.  After losing his last fight as a late replacement against David Price it would’ve been expected that an easy fight be put together for him to get him back on track. I think that this is what Dallas’ management thought Skelton would be and I fear that their underestimation of Skelton due to his age could have caused irreparable damage to Dallas’ career.

The fight ended in the 5th round when after a period of domination from Skelton, allsorts of problems developed for Dallas.  He found himself hanging half out of the ring, almost horizontally, with Skelton pounding blow upon blow into his face before the referee rightly stepped in to end it for him.  A lot of young (and old for that matter) fighters have bouts picked for them and maybe this fight will show the consequences of getting this wrong.  Dallas will certainly find it hard to become one of the nations feared heavyweights, which was his initial plan.

Other results on the night were as follows:-

– Liam Cameron beat Harry Matthews on points.

– Josh Warrington beart Dan Naylor on points.

– Joe Elfidh beat Joe Hughes on points.

– Paul Edwards beat Stefan Slavchev who retired in the 2nd.

– Danny Price beat John Anthony on points.

– Jamie Sampson beat Arran McKelvie on points.

– Lewis Taylor beat Gilson De Jesus on points.

– Issrar Asif beat Verban Borisov on points.

– Sam Matkin beat Mark McKray on points.