On a night of stack boxing action at London’s Copper Box on Saturday night [Oct 27] we saw some great domestic and international bouts staged by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom with some great 50:50 fights and the 11 fight card was topped by John Ryder in with Russian Andrey Sirotkin in a final eliminator for WBA super-middleweight title.
Ryder started well and although Sirotkin had won all 15 of his pro outings he looked a class below Ryder who controlled the pace and action from the off. Ryder got cut in the 6th round from a clash of heads as Sirotkin seemed to lead with his head throughout. Under pressure from Ryder in the 7th Sirotkin went down on one knee and the ref counted him out (time 2:54).
Ryder will now be mandatory for an all British super-middleweight dust up with either WBA regular champ Rocky Fielding or WBA super champ Callum SMith and with all 3 being Matchroom fighters agreement should be reached quite easily for the fight to take place.
Billed as co-feature bout of the night was Ted Cheeseman and Asinia Byfield for the British super-welterweight strap the fight was a cracker and although Cheeseman controlled the early rounds and dropped Byfield in the 5th with 2 right hands. Byfiled showed his fighter instict when he cameback in the 7th and then slugged out the last 5 in a ready toe to toe affair. Cheeseman took the bout on all 3 cards 117-111, 117-111 and 117-110. And talk is now of Cheeseman facing fellow Matchroom rising star Anthony Fowler.
Another cracking fight saw Dave Coldwell trained Jordan Gill stop Commonwealth featherweight champ Ryan Doyle to capture the belt and going on to bigger and better things. In what was a pretty even affair up to the end of the 5th and a really well matched fight, Gill can out firing big shots in the 6th and dropped Doyle with a short left hand Doyle made it to the bell but getting hit with bombs in the 7th the ref had seen enough and called a halt to the action at 1:32 of the round.
The 10 round crusierweight contest between Isaac Chamberlain and Luke Watkins was another well matched tear up with Watkins ahead going into the 10th, he got tagged at the end of the round and went down. He got up to lose the bout 95-94 on the ref’s score card.
Earlier in the evening Felix Cash beat Stephen Danyo on points 100-90 over 10 rounds for the WBC international silver middleweight title.
Results in brief – Craig Richards took just 2 rounds to dispatch Polish late sub Michael Ludwiczak in their light-heavy bout. Super-feather got back to winning ways after his loss in May to James Tennyson at the o2 stopping Tanzanian Mohammed Kambuluta inside 2 rounds. Heavyweight George Fox beat Ferenc Zsalek on points over 4 rounds 40-36 to take his pro tally to 2-0, Kevin Mitchell trained super-feather Louie Lynn dropped Spaniard Rafael Castillo 3 times en-route to a 3rd round victory. Light-heavyweight Charlie Duffield beat Croat Josip Perkovic over 4 rounds on points 40-36 and Featherweight Reece Bellotti got back to winning ways beating brave Nicaraguan oppo Brayan Mairena over 6 rounds 59-55 on points.
All in all a great nights action with some big fights on the horizon now for Jordan Gill and John Ryder.
