Mixed bag at the Copper Box

Saturday night saw Queensbury Promotions' first show at the Copper Box Arena  in Stratford, with several title fights, including the highly anticipated Billy Joe Saunders v John Ryder bout, for the Commonwealth and British middleweight titles, held by Saunders.

Fight Of The Night

Liam Walsh v Joe Murray was an entertaining scrap for the Cromer man's Commonwealth super featherweight title, however the main event lived up to many people's expectations, with Saunders and Ryder's different styles making for a highly-compelling twelve round fight. Billy Joe retained his titles after a fight which saw Islington's Ryder marching forward with educated pressure,

Saunders retains his titles

throwing in some big hooks and uppercuts, while Saunders boxed well behind the jab, and at times produced some world class technical skills. John rocked his opponent in the 7th round, but that livened up the champion, who saw out the twelve rounds well, despite the pre-fight rumours of him being tight at the weight. The decision was unanimous in the champion's favour, with one judge scoring it a 115-114, and the other two 115-113. Dragon Boxing had it a 114-114 draw.

Disappointment Of The Night

The much hyped super flyweight Paul Butler struggled as he beat Chile's unbeaten Miguel Gonzalez over twelve rounds for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental title, however the British and Commonwealth title fight between Frankie Gavin and David Barnes never got going. The two welterweights are similar boxers, who like to keep it long behind technically sound jabs, and the big factor in this being such a poor contest, was the fact Barnes didn't really look like a man trying to get back into the big time. It was fought as a slow pace, with very little action of the dramatic variety. Gavin won a Lonsdale belt outright as he took a unanimous decision, however neither man came out of the fight with much credit, particularly disappointing from Frankie, who has been on a great run since re-uniting with former amateur trainer Tom Chaney.

Performance Of The Night

Chisora is in line for a world title shot

Frank Buglioni took a step forward in his career as he stopped Czech Republic's Bronislav Kubin with a powerful right hook in the second round of a scheduled ten rounder, however it's hard not to be impressed by Dereck Chisora, who claimed what's rightfully his, by stopping Edmund Gerber in five rounds for the European heavyweight title. Chisora was robbed of the title over in Finland two years ago, as he seemingly outworked home favourite Robert Helenius, but only one of the three judges saw him the winner. The signs were positive for this bout as he came in at a career lightest 235lbs, and although he took a good shot in the fourth round, the fifth round saw him pounding away at the Kazakhstan born German, forcing referee Guido Cavalleri to intervene. An emotional "Del Boy" dedicated the win to Dean Powell afterwards, and in his post-fight interview he spoke about a more professional and dedicated attitude to the sport, which has been there for all to see in his last couple of fights.

Prospect To Follow

Two guys made their debuts on this bill, North London's Georgie Kean, and Middlesbrough's Josh Leather. Kean had sold 700 tickets, and looks like he could be following in Frank Buglioni's footsteps by becoming a bit of a crowd pleaser, but I wasn't too impressed as he took a four round points win against Lincoln's Rick Boulter. Leather likewise cruised to a four round decision over Joe Beeden, and was a clear winner over the course of the fight. A winner of an ABA lightweight title last year, 21 year old Leather has real future in the sport ashe has very good technical skills, and could be part of a North East scene that's just bubbling at the moment. There's not been many big shows in that part of the world in recent years, but Leather is signed with Queensbury, along with a couple of other ex amateur standouts from the North East in fellow 'Boro boy Simon Vallily, and Bradley Saunders. 

He won't be a World Champion

We'd like to call this feature "He won't be winning any titles soon", however Boxing's nature nowadays is anyone can win a title, with the various different governing bodies. Therefore we've settled on the above, and it's hard to see Russian middleweight Dmitry Chudinov becoming a big success story. It was the second time he'd fought on British soil, this time taking on Max Maxwell,

Chudinov failed to impress once again

following a draw with Patrick Mendy at Wembley in July. The Serpukhov native is a pressure fighter, with a solid enough jab, but he's no Floyd Mayweather skill-wise, and no Nigel Benn power-wise, therefore a lot of his work is rather under-whelming. Maxwell is tough, he's got a lot of experience, but is a natural light middleweight, therefore it's hard to take much from the fight, other than the fact Chudinov moves to 11-0-2 (7 KO's).

RIP Dean Powell.

This was the final show that Dean Powell had worked on as a matchmaker, and Dragon Boxing would like to pass on our condolences to Dean's family and friends, a great man of our great sport.