By Nate Anderson: Making his first defense of his Commonwealth (British Empire) featherweight title, Paul Truscott (12-1, 1 KOs) was stopped in the 8th round by challenger John Simpson (19-6, 7 KOs) of a scheduled 12-round bout at the Eston Sports Academy, Middlesbrough, in Northumbria. With Truscott trailing in the fight, the bout was stopped in the 8th round due to a cut on the right eyelid of Truscott by referee Howard John Foster, who stopped it at 0:54 of the round.
Truscott, 22, seemed to hold his own in the first four rounds, landing well with his hard jabs and swift combinations to get the better of Simpson. However, after the 4th round, Simpson’s superior power and constant pressure allowed him to rounds five through eight. Truscott, who had a big advantage in terms of hand speed and jab, couldn’t handle the power shots from Simpson as he took a lot of punishment and had little to answer back with.
Truscott fought well in the 1st round, doubling and tripling up on his jabs. Simpson, the harder puncher, was coming forward but he had trouble landing because of Truscott’s movement. Simpson kept up the pressure and in the last minute of the round, he began to have more success at landing his jab and right hands.
In the 2nd round, Simpson did much better, matching Truscott jab for jab and landing well with right hands. The round was very close but Simpson seemed to edge it with his harder shots.
In the 3rd round, Simpson seemed to hurt Truscott with a hard left to the midsection as he was turning to get off the ropes. For much of the round, Simpson landed right hands to the head of Truscott and pressured him constantly. Truscott seemed uncomfortable with the power shots from Simpson and tried to move as much as possible but it didn’t seem to cause Simpson any problems, as he quickly caught up with him and tagged him with shots.
In the 4th round, Simpson wobbled Truscott with a right to the head halfway into the round. Truscott turned and immediately retreated to the outside, staying away from any more big exchanges with Simpson for the remainder of the round, though he did get hit with some nice body shots. Truscott, though, did a good job of turning Simpson back with his jabs, at one point nailing him with an impressive triple jab to the head.
In the 5th round, Truscott came back somewhat, jabbing at Simpson again and again at the start of the round and again hitting him with a crowd pleasing triple jab, each one snapping his head back and forth. With a jab like that, it’s a wonder why Truscott didn’t use it more often because it was very effective each time he used it and Simpson had no defense against it other than to take each jab to the head and just stand there.
When Truscott was jabbing hard like that, Simpson was nearly helpless to compete, because he didn’t have a similar weapon to use against him from long distance. Truscott, however, let up some in the final minute of the round, letting Simpson come forward and land some good right hands to the head and almost steal the round.
With Truscott’s right eye now purple with nasty bruising, took a lot of big shots from Simpson in the 6th round, unable to keep him away with his jab like in the previous round. It was still a close round, as Truscott landed some nice jabs and caught Simpson each time, snapping his head back with each one.
In the 7th round, Truscott was cut over his right eye from a class of heads. Now, Truscott was squinting and blinking constantly, having difficulties seeing out of the eye and taking many more shots than he had previously. Truscott fell back on his jab to get him out of the situation, throwing two sets of triple jabs back to back and buying a little time. However, in the last minute of the round, Simpson connected repeatedly with right hands shot, walking through Truscott’s jabs.
In the 8th round, Simpson was in attack mode, coming right at Truscott and tagging him with hard lefts at the start of the round. Once again, there was another clash of heads, this time, thankfully, there was no additional cuts that occurred. However, moments later, the referee stepped in and walked Truscott over to the ringside doctor to have his cut examined. The doctor decided to stop the fight right away, stopping it 0:54 of the round.
Afterwards, Simpson said “I’m disappointed. I wanted the fight to go a bit longer. I’d give him [Simpson] a rematch, no doubt.”