GOWER SHOWER
Leon swarms all over Summers to force the stoppage
AFTER 10 months out, Burton’s Leon Gower jumped straight back into a tough-looking eight-threes against Jack Summers at the Holiday Inn and forced a fifth-round stoppage that moves his career along.
Summers had a good win over Louis Fielding last time out, but, as he said he would, 24-year-old Gower broke him down. The opening two rounds were close. Gower pressed patiently, not wasting much, while Summers boxed well on the move. But by the end of the third, Summers was starting to feel the pace.
Gower had him looking uncomfortable a couple of times in a quieter fourth and cranked the pressure up a notch in the next. He took something out of the West Bromwich fighter with a right hand to the body and opened up with a two-fisted attack. Gower drove him into a neutral corner, poured on the punches and slammed a heavy right hand off Summers’ jaw that made his knees dip.
At that point, with Summers heading to the canvas, referee-for-the-night Shaun Messer waved it off. Time was 2-00.
The Stokes brothers from West Bromwich enjoyed a good night. Boxing on the same show together for the first time, Josh Stokes opened the show by shutting out Manchester’s Curtis Gargano over four-threes, then saw younger sibling Tom Stokes
wallop heavily tattooed Paul Hilz,
from Rochford, inside two rounds of a scheduled eight in the top-of-the-bill fight on Errol Johnson’s promotion.
Hilz was up quickly from a cuffing right hand, but on the resumption, Stokes jumped on him and blasted him out of the fight with a salvo of around 20 unanswered punches. Mr Messer stepped in at 2-43 and though Hilz insisted he could carry on, his legs told a different story.
THE VERDICT Despite this fight being advertised at featherweight, Gower’s future could be at superbantam.