Degale stops Morrison, Gavin defeats Saville – Boxing Results

By William Mackay: 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist for Britain James DeGale (4-0, 3 KO’s) stopped Ally Morrison (2-1-1) tonight in a 3rd round stoppage in a six round scheduled bout at the at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, Merseyside. DeGale, 23, landed three hard left hooks in the 3rd that sent Morrison staggering back against the ropes. DeGale then added a finishing right and then another left hand at which point referee Howard John Foster stepped in and halted the bout at 0:45 with Morrison still on his feet.

DeGale showed improvement in the power department over his past three fights as a pro. However, the additional power came at the expense of DeGale’s defense because Morrison was able to hit DeGale pretty much every time he tried to land anything. Luckily for DeGale that Morrison rarely threw any punches because as it was, he marked up DeGale’s right eye from the few shots that he did land.

In the 1st round, DeGale landed effectively with combinations to the body and head. DeGale landed especially well to the body. During the round, DeGale landed 50% of his punches, connecting with 34 of 67. DeGale constantly switched from orthodox to southpaw and back again. The constant switching was hardly needed and only seemed to keep DeGale busy because Morrison was hopelessly outclassed in this fight regardless of which side that DeGale was fighting in.

DeGale seemed to be going out of his way to be more offensively oriented. He was sitting down on his shots much more than he had in his past fights. However, this left DeGale open for a lot of shots from the lighting hitting Morrison. It didn’t matter that DeGale was getting tagged every once in awhile, though, because he had nothing to fear from with the light shots from Morrison.

DeGale continued his mastery of Morrison in the 2nd round, landing good body shots in the round. In the last seconds of action in the round, DeGale landed a hard left hand that connected cleanly to the head of Morrison, causing him to back up. DeGale then landed a flurry of hard shots as the round ended.

In the 3rd round, Morrison was no longer throwing back at DeGale and was just standing there and taking shots. DeGale poured in, loading up on every shot. Finally, DeGale connected with three looping left hooks that connected to the side of Morrison’s head causing him to lose his balance and back up. DeGale then followed him tagging him as he backed up to the ropes. Referee Howard John Foster then stepped in and stopped the one-sided bout at that point.

Overall, DeGale looked good. I don’t think he looked good enough to win a world title but he’s good enough to be a top contender. His leaky defense and lack of power will likely keep DeGale from ever winning a title at the world level unfortunately.

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In other action on the card, light welterweight prospect Frankie Gavin (4-0, 4 KO’s) defeated Steve Saville (19-7, 8 KO’s) by a 2nd round TKO. The bout was stopped by referee Howard John Foster at 2:32 following a big left hand miss from the 32-year-old Saville that caused him to slip and fall as he was throwing the shot. The referee blew the call and ruled it a knockdown, despite the fact that Saville wasn’t hit and fell down from the momentum of his wild left hand shot.

The bout was almost comical in the one-sided nature. Saville spent most of the bout covering up in one corner or another and sometimes wildly charging at Gavin and missing badly. Gavin picked him apart with counter shots during these occasions. The rest of the time, Gavin landed well with combinations to the body and head. It’s too bad that Gavin didn’t have a better opponent because this fight was a waste of time because Saville was way out of his class.

Like DeGale, I don’t see Gavin ever winning a major world title. He doesn’t have the speed, power or ability to beat the better fighters in the light welterweight division at this point and when he gets older and likely moves up in weight to the welterweight division, Gavin will have even bigger problems dealing with the bigger, faster, more powerful fighters. He will be a good local fighter, though, so that’s something that he can look forward to.

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