– Gwendolyn O’Neil
Guyana’s Gwendolyn O’ Neil won but Winston Pompey and Stephanie George suffered losses last Friday in St Maarten.
Middleweight Pompey’s bout against unbeaten Frankie `The Bomb’ Paines was the main bout on the card held at the L.B Scott Sports Auditorium and the Guyanese was kayoed in the seventh round of the scheduled 10-rounder by Paines.
The 26-year-old Paines, a native of France, record now reads 10 fights, 0 losses and 0 draws. He has won all of his fights by knockouts.
The defeat was Pompey’s fifth of his fledgling seven-fight career in which he has recorded only two wins both over fellow-Guyanese Troy Lewis. The first was a TKO in the fourth and final round of their middleweight scrap at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall in 2005, while the second was a unanimous decision win the following year at the National Park.
George, whose previous fight was some two years ago when she lost a unanimous decision to Trinidad’s Ria Ramnarine in the twin-island republic, lost on a split decision to Claudette Alexander of St Maarten in a bantamweight four-round clash.
The bright spot for the locals, however was the performance of Gwendolyn `The Stealth Bomber’ O’ Neil.
Using her experience gained from fighting boxers such as Laila Ali during her career, O’Neil not only defended her WIBC light heavyweight title but also raked in the vacant WIBA title by virtue of her split decision win over Carlette `The Truth’ Ewell, a title that she first held when she defeated Kathy Rivers at the National Park back in 2004.
O’Neil told Stabroek Sport that the fight was good.
“The girl came to fight and I made up my mind to fight,” she said. She added that her opponent, who she said hailed fron North Carolina, did not really hurt her.
“She did not really hurt me, she was using her elbows and I had to warn her in one of the rounds and tell her not to use her elbows just let us fight,” added O’ Neil who was accompanied by experienced trainer Lennox Daniels and Eon Peters.
O’Neil said she was scheduled to fight in Canada on June 26 but will now look to a warm-up fight sometime next month in preparation for her title defence against Ewell on August 29.
“I think this time I’m going to knock her out.”
