In a bruising, bloody battle between two of South America’s top featherweights, Clive ‘The Punisher’ Atwell defeated a game Raphael ‘El Potro’ Hernandez to earn the vacant WBC CABOFE title in an exciting action-packed fight at the Princess Hotel.
Saturday night’s headline bout of the mega card dubbed ‘Fire Storm’ was full of fireworks as the undefeated Atwell finally found himself in a real fight, complete with a bloody face and an opponent who was never going to quit.
As usual, he found a way to win.
Atwell used his speed and accuracy to take a unanimous decision over his toughest opponent since he made his professional debut three years ago. However, it was not easy as the Venezuelan southpaw Hernandez, landed some hard punches and kept attacking all the way to the final bell.
“Hernandez is a hell of a fighter,” Atwell told the press in a post fight interview. “He is the toughest guy I ever fought.”
Atwell dominated early and in the latter stages of the 12-round brawl, rocking Hernandez with vicious combinations to the head and body to pull out a win and remain unbeaten in his 11 fights. Unlike most of his fights, though, ‘The Punisher’ got his face bloodied and engaged in some bruising exchanges he usually likes to avoid. In the sixth round, the new featherweight CABOFE champion landed the best punch of the night, an overhand left that hurt Hernandez who also sustained a cut over his right eye. With the large and raucous crowd standing and anticipating a knockout, Atwell followed up with power punches from all angles but ‘El Potro’s stoic defence and iron chin allowed him to stay on his feet.
Throughout the remainder of the fight, the 24-year-old Atwell was faster and more accurate than the 30-year-old Hernandez whose record slipped to 15 wins (13 KO’s) four losses and two draws.
The judges scored the fight 118-112, 119-110 and 116-113 all in favour of the local pound-for-pound king.
The scores were not indicative of how close and action packed the fight really was. With the victory, Atwell, who improved to 10-0, 1, 5 KOs will enter the lucrative World Boxing Council (WBC) Cup which will box off in June.
The WBC Cup is a tournament to celebrate the WBC’s 50th anniversary.
It will allow boxers in the tournament from all around the world to receive lucrative paydays as well as international exposure. Jamaican, Sakima Mullings will also enter the WBC Cup as he also pounded out a unanimous decision over the experienced Howard ‘Battersea Bomber’ Eastman in their CABOFE welterweight title fight.
Mullings, 30, used his speed and accuracy to control the bout throughout the one-sided affair with the 42-year-old Eastman. The’ Battersea Bomber’ absorbed several telling head and body shots in perhaps the last championship fight of his illustrious career.
Eastman, the former world rated middleweight fighter record dropped to 46-14, 2, 35 KOs while Mullings who resembles and fought similarly to a Roy Jones Jr., in his prime, improved to 12-1, 7 KOs.
The three ringside judges scored the fight 118-110, 117-111 and 116-112.
In the two other championship bouts on the card, Elton ‘The Bully’ Dharry and Mark Austin were crowned national champions in contrasting fashion.
While Austin went head-to-head with Gladwin Dorway and gained a split decision verdict to lift the junior middleweight title in an all out brawl, Dharry dominated the much shorter Orlan ‘Pocket Rocket’ Rogers throughout their brief one-sided bantamweight bout. Seemingly on the way to another knockout loss, Rogers claimed that he pulled his hamstring in the third round and could not continue and thus the fight was called to a halt and Dharry was awarded the title.
The journeyman Rogers’ abysmal record further drops to (5-16), Dharry, who improved to (13-5, 1, 6 KOs) stated after the bout that he expects to be in the ring in the not too distant future against a Mexican opponent in New York.
Dorway, who had knocked out all four of his previous opponents, was exhausted after the first six rounds after dishing out a series of hard right hands to Austin’s head and torso but both fighters put on crowd pleasing, gutsy performances to end the punch-filled fight on their feet.
In the first professional bout of the seven-fight card, Syrian born Mahmoud ‘The Extractor’ Loul was decked in the first round and was lucky to escape with a draw over Berbician, Derek Richmond who did enough to earn an easy victory in their four-round contest.
Loul ate several servings of left and right hands by Richmond for the first three rounds before dishing out some of his own to an exhausted Richmond in the fourth. A smattering of boos resonated throughout the venue when the 38-37 (Loul), 39-36 (Richmond), 38-38 (draw) scores were announced.
On the amateur segment of the card, products of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Quincy Boyce and Candacy Benjamin gained two-one victories over their respective Rose Hall Jammers opponents Keron Griffith and Akesia Arokium.
According to executives of the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC), the event was dubbed a major success.
Sponsors for the card included Digicel, Banks DIH Limited, Assuria Insurance, Guyoil, Ansa McAL, Giftland Office Max and Courts Guyana Inc.
