ALL TOO BRIEF
The action is all done and dusted in less than an hour
JUST seven days after spectators attending a show a few miles down the road in Leeds were denied the opportunity to watch one of four scheduled bouts after a home boxer weighed in way too heavy, the curse befell a same-sized event at the Bradford Hotel. This one saw its intended offering cut by a quarter when local Jermaine Springer withdrew on the day of the Frank Duffin promotion.
I lost count of the number of times referee-for-the-night Darren Sarginson instructed mauling duo Ricky Starkey (Liverpool) and Amin Jahanzeb (Bradford) to “Stop boxing”, both being guilty right from the start of holding and grabbing, meaning the bout never settled into anything even vaguely watchable.
Most of what little quality there was came from Jahanzeb, but in the wild early stages he often clinched after landing a shot, rather than following up.
That said, it was Starkey who angered the official sufficiently enough in the second to have a point docked for persistent holding. Not that things improved at all, and in the third both boxers, holding each other tightly, exited the ring between two ropes and finished in a heap outside. Doctors checked them out before they were allowed to continue.
It came then as something of a relief when, with 10 seconds of the third and penultimate round remaining, it was waved off after Starkey went down following another maul.
Two further contests, thankfully boxed according to the rules, saw victories for a pair of home boxers.
Brighouse’s James First won 40-36, seeing Blackburn’s Naheem Chaudhry suffer his 22nd consecutive defeat. Meanwhile, Bradford’s Zeeshan Khan dominated against Kingsteignton’s experienced Jamie Speight, who was cut by the left eye in the second. The taller local attacked effectively en route to a 60-54 verdict.