By Gianluca (Rio) Di Caro
Slotted in between the main events was a four round lightweight contest
featuring Enfield’s unbeaten Chris ‘The Flash’ Evangelou and Rotherham’s
Jon Baguley.
A cracking all action fight in which the young Londoner was able to
showcase his exceptional talent to yet another big crowd. Don’t get me
wrong it wasn’t all one way traffic from Evangelou, Baguley didn’t come to
make up the numbers.
For four round the pair went for it a hundred and ten percent, just as I
said Evangelou is an exceptional talent and it showed. His work rate and
quality of punches were the telling difference that earned him a tidy
49-47 points victory.
Remember the name Chris Evangelou, I predict that this youngster is going
to be huge and it’s just a matter of time before we see him in
Championship action.
The main support bout for Fury-Chisora see Kilburn’s Ashley ‘Treasure’
Theophane defend his British Light Welterweight crown against former
European and IBO World Lightweight Champion Jason Cook.
Cookie starts fast and takes the fight to the champ in the fist couple of
rounds. Throughout Cookie looks well in control and lands some cracking
big rights. Ashley fought well but Jason was far more active and landed a
lot more shots.
The fourth was a much closer round, both men upped their work rate and
added even more venom to their punches.
More of the same in the fifth, which was already heading towards being yet
another round for Cookie even before Ashley was deducted a point for yet
another low blow, his fourth in two rounds!
Round six was a much closer affair as Ashley started to up the pace and
take the fight to Cookie. Some nice back and forth action ensued, Ashley
started to turn the style on and land some peaches.
The tide starts to turn in the seventh, As before the pair went at it
hammer and tongs for the full three minutes. The highlight of the all
action round see Ashley land a cracking right, quickly followed by a crisp
left-right to which Cookie countered with an equally venomous right. First
clear round for Ashley in my book, but was it to be too little too late?
Round eight sees ‘Treasure’ pile on the pressure and at times looks
extremely dangerous, especially when he started picking his shots. The
venom in these shots was clear for all to see, the tide now flowed a
hundred percent in his direction. An easy round to call in the Champ’s
favour.
Ashley dominates round nine, great action throughout the round but the
highlight comes with just seconds left on the clock. Ashley rocks Cookie
with a huge right followed by a salvo of exocets. Somehow Cookie survives
until the bell.
Starting the tenth in the same vein as the previous round Ashley stalked
his quarry before launching a series of big shots, that culminated in a
huge right that sends Cookie down - and out with just forty three seconds
on the clock.
Great performances from both fighters, I have to admit by the midway point
I thought Ashley had well and truly blown it, I was wrong.
It was another great performance by the reigning champ in the fight that
preceded Theophane-Cook. Southern Area Light Middleweight Champ Ryan Toms
defended his title in emphatic style against the normally oh so classy
Newmarket prospect ‘Phat’ Pat McAleese.
From the off this looked like would be one helluva fight, and it was. The
early exchanges were fantastic evenly matched affairs but as the round
progressed Ryan switched tactics and started to really add some power to
his shots.
Early in the second Ryan lands a peach of a left, quickly followed by
another. Pat comes back with a cracking double handed flurry. As the round
progresses Pat changes tactics and starts to box, and box beautifully.
Ryan though smelled blood and starts to really load up his shots.
The third was a real lively affair, Pat again boxes beautifully but Ryan
steps it up and targets the body. As the round progresses Ryan seems
content to pick his shots, again targeting the body with venomous lefts.
After yet another big body shot backs the Newmarket man up and lets rip
with a powerful double handed flurry. Pat does well to recover from the
onslaught to survive the round.
After various big exchanges in the fourth Ryan lands another big left to
the body, Pat sinks down and takes the count. As soon as the count’s over
Ryan is all over Pat like a rash and again lands a big left to the body,
Pat goes down for the second time. As the fight resumes the writing is on
the wall and it comes as no surprise when Ryan lets rip with yet another
vicious left to the body. ‘Phat’ Pat goes down for the third and final
time, as the referee waves the fight off at the two minutes and forty four
second mark.
It may have been a short fight but it was a right royal dust-up. Ryan Toms
looks ready to move up and have to say judging on this performance British
Champion Prince Arron should be the next target in his sights. Now that’s
a mouth watering prospect for the new season.
Heading up the Championship bouts support card see Sheffield based Qatari
Kid Galahad in action against Mansfield based Latvian Pavels Senkovs.
Nice little work out for the talented Kid Galahad as Senkovs is no walk
over. For five rounds Galahad barely got into second gear as he out boxed
the game Latvian. The final round see Kid Galahad shift up a couple of
gears and go in search of a stoppage finish. Big double handed flurries
rained down on the Latvian exile for virtually every second of the final
three minutes.
Excellent performance by Kid Galahad to earn a shut out 60-54 points victory.
Now having read this far you will have a good idea that this show was a
bit of a blinder, and that there were some awesome performances. Now if I
were to say to you that my performance of the night wasn’t Tyson Fury,
wasn’t even Ashley Theophane or Ryan Toms but was three fight veteran
Peter Vaughan you’d probably laugh, that is unless you were at Wembley
Arena on Saturday night.
Peter Vaughan was served up as the sacrificial lamb for hot Light
Middleweight prospect Phil Fury, but as everyone soon found out this was
no lamb but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The first couple of rounds there was some great action, and most coming
from young Vaughan who seemed intent to make his mark. By the third
Vaughan was well in his stride and picking his shots. It wasn’t all one
way traffic and there was some good toe-to-toe action midway through the
round, but Vaughan’s high tempo work rate and accurate punching secured
him the round, as the pair before, easily.
More of the same in the fourth, but come the fifth Vaughan shifted up a
gear and really went to town, mixing it up with solid body shots and big
right hands. Fury responds with some big shots of his own but nowhere near
the level Vaughan was dishing out. At this point I have Vaughan five
rounds up and looking to cruise to victory.
The sixth goes more or less the same way, but Vaughan digs into his well
stocked arsenal of punches and starts letting rip with big rights followed
by rib cracking hooks or explosive uppercuts.
Fury obviously realised his precious ‘O’ record was in serious danger as
he shot out to take the fight to Vaughan in the seventh. Big mistake
Vaughan catches the advancing Mancunian with a huge left and so started
yet another round dominated by the young upstart Vaughan.
The eighth and final round was a cracker, Fury needed a knockout to keep
his record unblemished and he knew it. This was by far Fury’s best round
but again he was out boxed and out foxed by the excellent Peter Vaughan,
who was magnificent throughout and thoroughly deserved the victory.
I was little surprised that referee Bob Williams scored it 78-75 as
Vaughan had won every single round by a country mile, that’s not just my
thoughts but that of the amassed press corps seated around me.
Waltham Abbey’s Phil Gill was next up, against Sheffield based Qatari Mo
Khaled.
It took Gill a couple of rounds to get to grips with the awkward Dominic
Ingle trained fighter’s switch hitting style, so Khaled took the first
couple of rounds comfortably.
Once Gill had him sussed he was able to land big rights at will. Khaled
switched tactics and drew Gill in, big mistake that’s where Gill is at his
best and boy did he make the Qatari exile pay for that mistake.
At the end of six excellent rounds I had Gill ahead by one round, although
in all honesty the third could have gone either way so wasn’t really that
surprised when referee Bob Williams held both hands aloft and declared it
a 57-57 draw.
Yet another top class bout preceded Gill-Khaled, this time Luton based
Bulgarian Bobby George (Boris Georgiev) faced Manchester’s Tamao Dwyer.
Again it was a cracker, albeit quite one-sided. Right from the start
George turned on the style and played to the gallery. As early as the
second round George would look up to his many supporters after a
particularly slick bit of work, no surprise really he made it look so
easy.
Round after round he plain out boxed Dwyer, picking his shots before
letting rip with a flurry of crisp double handed flurries.
George turned up the heat in the fourth and really went to town on the
head of Dwyer, so much so that by the end of the first minute he’d opened
up a cut over the left eye of the Mancunian. Referee Bob Williams was
quick to notice the widening cut and called for the doctor, who declared
the cut too serious to continue and handing George his second TKO finish
in three pro outings.
I arrived at the Wembley Arena just as debutant Lee Markham’s bout,
against the ubiquitous Matt Scriven, was about to start.
It took a round or so for the youngster to settle down, but once he turned
on the class and picked off the more experienced Scriven with ease. Late
in the third Markham really shook Scriven and it looked like a stoppage
finish was on the cards. In the final stanza Scriven used his vast
experience to keep out of trouble against the clearly talented youngster.
After four excellent rounds Lee Markham earned his first pro win by a
shutout 40-36 points margin.
My final words on this most excellent (yes I know I keep saying excellent,
but the bouts and the event were very much just that) event is I have
covered many events, on both sides of the Atlantic, but this was my first
Hennessy Sports event. If this is the level of quality of all Mick
Hennessy promoted shows I can’t wait for the next, as this was quality
from start to finish.
