– Azore outboxes Austin
By Emmerson Campbell
Once again the fountain of youth prevailed over the wealth of experience.
In front of a small but boisterous crowd at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Friday night, young and upcoming pugilists, Kishawn Simon, Gladwin Dorway and Richard Williamson highlighted the staging of the 25th edition of the Fight Night Pro Am card with scintillating knock out wins over their older opponents.
The three products of Berbice proud surely made the Ancient County proud.
Guyana’s welterweight champion, Iwan ‘Pure Gold’ Azore was also victorious after he boxed his way to a hard fought unanimous victory over Mark Austin to retain his title in the card’s headliner.
Simon, 22, convincingly avenged his unanimous debut loss in July to Patrick Boston after he sent the 43-year-old journeyman crashing to the canvas with a series of head shots in the third round.
After two rounds of hugging and waltzing, Simon was intent on ending the affair after an exhausted Boston answered the bell for the third frame. Boston was greeted with a jabs, rights and lefts and failed to retaliate as if he was in a trance. Simon cornered Boston an unleashed a brutal left-right combination to the chin of Boston that sent him crashing to the canvas. The time was one minute and 53 seconds when the one-sided affair ended.
Boston, who started his professional career three years ago at the age of 40, should now be thinking of hanging up his gloves. His record dropped to one win and three loses.
Dorway was also in his usual knockout mode. The 23-year-old who had disposed of both of his previous opponents in the third round ended Friday night’s encounter with Cassius Matthews one minute into the second round.
Matthews was in survival mode from the start of the bout, jabbing and running, trying to evade Dorway’s right hand. He would survive the first round as Dorway failed to land his money-maker. However, his survival was short lived as Dorway landed a straight right hand to the nose of the 40-year-old Matthews that crumpled him to the canvas.
With the KO, Matthews’s losses have now doubled his wins. His record now reads four wins, eight losses and two draws.
Williamson who turns 20 next month, had no respect for Rudolph Fraser, his elder of 15 years as he came out intent on ending the fight in the first round.
Williamson, a south paw who possesses power in both hands, rocked Fraser with crisp rights and lefts.
The veteran would however survive the round and turn the tables on Williamson, clearly winning the second and third rounds with his aggression and power punches.
Fraser’s accumulation of points however ended with one punch. At 15 seconds into the fourth round, Fraser’s jaw collided with a thunderous right hand from Williamson that sent him crashing to the canvas ending the fight and perhaps his career. After the bout Fraser, who commenced his career in 2004, stated that he will most likely hang up his gloves. His record now reads six wins, four losses and a draw.
Williamson, whose record improves to two wins and a disqualification loss in his last fight versus Charlton Skeete, intimated that he wants a rematch to even the score with Skeete.
Azore and Austin fought a rough and tumble, back and forth bout which ended with the former eking out a unanimous victory much to the disapproval of the patrons who felt that Austin did enough to clinch the local welterweight title. The score cards read, 114-113,116-111 and 116-112, all in favour of the Trinidad and Tobago-based Azore.
Meanwhile, on the amateur segment of the card, the local Simon Pures pleased the hometown crowd by recording victories over their three respective Trinidadian counterparts in a historic night for amateur boxing.
Eon Bancroft forced the referee to stop the contest in the second round after he unleashed a barrage of unanswered punches to an overwhelmed Leon Nottingham, who brought nothing but his running boots to the contest.
Dennis Thomas outclassed Eclan Calliste to record a three-nil, victory in a highly entertaining middleweight bout.
Stefan Gouveia also was engaged in an entertaining fistic battle with the national lightweight champion of T&Tt, Michael Alexander. After a slow start, the Guyanese rebounded to win two-one.
Junior Sportsman-of the Year Imran ‘Magic’ Khan was also impressive, easily winning his bout, three-nil against Guyana Defence Force’s Ryan Jeffers.
Sponsors for the card, which was staged by the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC), included Guyoil, Courts, Digicel, Ansa McAl and Banks DIH Limited.
