ALL CHANGE
No English title fight but clean sweep at Villa, writes Andy Whittle
A MUCH changed card went ahead in the Holte Suite at Villa Park as Birmingham hosted pro boxing for the second successive evening.
Gone was the proposed English title bout between Sam Gilley and Drew Brown, along with several other bouts. What remained after something of a re-jig were a quintet of four-round bouts and a single contest over six.
The six-rounder pitched Coventry’s unbeaten River Wilson-bent in against 38 yearold Slovenian Michal Gazdik and at the culmination of a one-sided affair it was Wilson-bent who secured the 59-54 decision of Newark referee Kevin Parker, the only blot being the deduction of a point in the final session for a low blow.
It had looked, at the end of the fourth, as if the outgunned visitor might be about to call it a day but, game if little else, he came out again and, while bested by quite a margin, made it through to the finish.
Blackpool’s Craig Sumner,
beaten in his previous seven without winning a single round, lasted all of 28 seconds in his slated four against popular Brummie Lewis Coley [ pictured],
before being counted out by third man Sean Messer. A right to the body, the first real punch of the bout, dropped Craig to all fours and that was where he remained, banging his glove on the canvas, for the duration of the count. The same official scored Birmingham pair Jagdeep Purewal and Oli Cassidy 39-38 and 40-36 winners in their respective contests against Glasgow’s
Gary Mcguire and Warminster’s Paul Cummings, while Mr Parker had Birmingham’s
Elliott Sowe a 40-37 winner over Melksham’s
Liam Richards in a bout closer than the score might suggest, and adjudged Bermuda-born Tyler Christopher a 40-35 winner over Bogner’s Carl Turney, who lost a point for holding.
THE VERDICT The English title fight is missed.