THE ROUTE TO THE FINALS
The semis throw up stoppages, upsets and excellence
THERE was a real big-fight feel to Saturday night in Hall Four at the NEC.
Cameras spotted young fans among a feverishly excited sell-out crowd with ‘DJ’ painted on their faces and Delicious ‘DJ’ Orie sent them home happy by outpointing New Zealand’s strong-butslow-footed Leuila Mau’u in their super-heavyweight semi final.
Mau’a was a danger to the home favourite, having pulled off a one-punch knockout in the last eight, but against Orie, he struggled to get into range to land his bombs.
Time and again, Orie would beat him to the punch with fast jabs and quickly step off, leaving Mau’u swiping thin air with his left-hook counters.
Orie shrugged off the best punch Mau’u landed in the opening round – a hard right hand to the body – to finish the session on top and put his punches together in the second to knock the New Zealander on to his heels.
He straightened himself and grinned before gambling on a leaping lead left hook in the last that Orie saw coming.
England had eight semi-finalists and five winners. Heavyweight Lewis Williams shut out Edgardo Coumi (Australia) with his jab in a match of tall technicians to win unanimously, and Sunderland southpaw Kiaran Macdonald also impressed, stopping Jake Dodd (Wales) in the third to reach the flyweight final.
Dodd had used bell-to-bell front-foot pressure and workrate to reach the last four, but Macdonald was too tall and skilled and was able to pick him off.
There were gasps from the crowd when Macdonald landed uppercuts and he dished out two counts in the second before finding the perfect finish, flooring Dodd with a superbly timed right hook as he looked to close the gap.
Gemma Richardson reached the women’s lightweight final by jumping all over hard-to-get-to Indian southpaw
Jaismine Lamboria and outworking her to win unanimously, but England team-mates Savannah Stubley, Lewis Richardson and Aaron Bowen went out.
Stubley was outpointed by Zareen Nikhat (India) and Richardson was shocked by Scotland’s Sam Hickey, whom he had beaten in the semi-finals of the European Championships in May.
Hickey tagged Richardson in the dying seconds of the first and the Englishman instantly looked to fire back.
Hickey punched with him and found his chin with a right that stiffened his legs for an eight count.
That was the punch that ended the fight in the second. Richardson reached with a southpaw left and after it fell short, Hickey was waiting to fire a right onto his unguarded chin, leaving him on the seat of his trunks.
Richardson was up quickly, but the referee waved it off.
The light-heavyweight semi-final between Bowen and Taylor Bevan (Wales) was much closer.
Bevan was quicker to the punch in the first before Bowen forced more exchanges in the second and got the better of the action to leave it level on four cards going into the last.
There weren’t too many clean punches landed until midway through the round, when Bevan scored with a couple of thumping shots on the inside.
This time, Bowen was unable to find an immediate response and those punches in a messy round probably had the Welshman ahead going into the last half-minute.
Those final 30 seconds had the crowd on their feet as the home nations duo threw everything at each other.
Both were still standing at the final bell and Bevan swept the round on all cards for a unanimous win.
Sean Lazzerini also reached the final at 80kgs, the Scot boxing sensibly to outpoint rangy Tanzanian puncher Yusuf Changalawe on a 4-1 split.