In Greek mythology, when Pandora opened her particular box she released all the evils imaginable, which then spread over the world. On the second opening of the Copper Box arena tonight, all that emerged was a faint whiff of staleness. The long planned event was blighted by injury-related pull outs and contractual problems involving some of the promoter’s fighters.
The result was the lowest of low-key nights which was headlined by European heavyweight champion, Dereck Chisora, not defending that title but fighting for a couple of inter-belts against third-choice opponent Ondrej Pala, 32-4 (22), from the Czech Republic. Chisora, 19-4 (13), sleepwalked his way through the first two rounds, giving his unregarded opponent the opportunity to land several heavy head shots, particularly the left hook, one of which clearly took Delboy by surprise in the second round, sending him retreating to the ropes. It was a bit worrying to see Dereck shaken up by such poor quality opposition but it seemed to have the effect of waking him from his slumber.
Chisora lost that second round as, following the aforementioned left hook, Pala sensed the opportunity of grabbing a shock victory and landed several follow up shots to the head. The third round saw a different Chisora. He finally took control of the fight and forced Pala onto the back foot, clubbing him around the head with heavy hooks. Pala briefly fought back but Chisora was not to be denied now and another sequence of heavy hooks had Pala stumbling face first into a corner, where a couple of further shots on the undefended head of the Czech brought the referee’s intervention. It showed the ambition of Pala that he capitulated so easily as soon as Chisora upped the pace.
It’s an unfortunate weakness in the Finchley heavyweight that he fails to perform at his best when the opposition does not inspire him. So it proved again tonight. No harm done though and Delboy will retain his high position in the world rankings as the top contenders jostle amongst themselves waiting for the day when the Klitschko brothers renounce their crowns.
The most competitive fight of the night, as was always going to be the case, was the English welterweight title fight between veteran Colin Lynes, 37-11 (12), and Frank Warren’s young hopeful, Bradley Skeete, 14-0 (4). The view beforehand was that the timing of this fight was spot on, with Lynes just far enough over the hill to be taken by the rising young Skeete, and so it proved with Skeete winning a unanimous decision over 10 rounds. It was a mixed performance however from the Penge man. He dominated large parts of the fight, but suffered a knockdown in the second round when a left hook, followed by an overhand right which bounced off the top of his head, forced him to take a knee. Lynes followed up strongly after Skeete arose, sensing an early stoppage victory. However, Skeete punched back and survived the short time that was left in the round.
Rounds three through eight were all won by Skeete, who showed little ill-effects following the knockdown. He stood on the back foot, fully utilising his height and reach advantages over Lynes, and counter-punching with the left jab as soon as Lynes made any move forward. Lynes also likes to counter-punch but, on this occasion, with all the physical advantages in the opposite corner, he was never going to be able to win this fight on the jab. He had to get inside the long arms of Skeete and work away. Disappointingly though he spent long periods of those middle rounds hardly doing anything and, as a consequence, letting the fight slip away from him.
It was heading towards being a highly competent performance from Skeete until the last two rounds. In the ninth, Lynes finally went to work and as he got close, landed a superb right hand which exploded bang on the nose of Skeete, sending his head flying backwards. Lynes kept up the pressure from that point on and took the final two rounds to tighten it up on the cards. It was never going to be enough though and the judges scored 97-93, 96-94 and 96-93 all for Skeete. I agreed with the latter score. Somewhat surprisingly, Lynes appeared disgusted by the decision and was seen to mouth “no way” before storming from the ring. He cannot possibly believe he did enough to win this fight as he gave away far too many rounds.
Skeete will now go forward and almost certainly fight for the British title next year. It would have been nice to see him put an exclamation mark on his win by keeping up his good form into the last two rounds. He has yet to convince that he will go further than British title level. As for Lynes, surely the time has come for him to hang up the gloves. He has been too good a fighter to continue on as a stepping-stone for the up and comers, which is what would now inevitably happen.
The only other fight of interest on the card saw Enfield’s Frank Buglioni, 11-0 (8), win the WBO European title by knocking out another Czech, Stepan Horvath, 11-2 (3), in the eighth round. It had been a one-paced performance by the unbeaten Buglioni for the first seven rounds, in which he mostly used his left jab to keep his unambitious opponent at arm’s length. Horvath looked like a welterweight compared to the massive Buglioni and was never in the fight, despite displaying quite fast hands and landing with the occasional left hook. It was a walk in the park for Frank but he was in danger of putting the fans to sleep until he landed a superb left hook to the body in round eight, which put Horvath down on the canvas in considerable pain. Horvath beat the count but within a short few seconds had taken a follow-up left hook to the liver which sent him to the canvas again, clearly in agony. Referee Bob Williams counted him out.
Buglioni is a bit of a cash-cow for promoter Warren at the moment, selling almost a thousand tickets each time he fights. Expect him to be kept at this lower level for another year therefore, as Warren will not want to risk moving him up in class until he has to.
Overall, this was a show which never recovered from the aforementioned difficulties in the build up and was finally crippled by the late pull out of former WBO light-heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly with an injury. It was a far cry from the Warren shows of old which featured star name after star name. The only fighter of even international class on this card was Chisora. Let us hope for better next time.
@RachelAylett1
