By Peter Wells: We all felt frustrated after Murray-Mitchell was delayed for a week, and was shoved onto an already packed bill. It didn’t seem we needed any more big fights on the show, but then we realized ‘everything happens for a reason’. And wasn’t it a good job Murray-Mitchell was moved back a week.

The first of the anticipated bouts had little of the fireworks we expected after all the talk from Frankie Gavin and Curtis Woodhouse. Despite no knockout it did have some decent action and Frankie once again proved his defence needs plenty of adjustments. Frankie knows he’s not taking boxing seriously enough so he’ll need to knuckle down to reach his full potential. Gavin managed to win by split decision to the boxer/footballer but challenges such as Lenny Daws and Ashley Thephane shouldn’t be on Gavin’s mind right now.

His lack of interest could well be too do with the low profile opposition meaning he’d be more motivated if he was the challenge the best in Britain, but not impressing against the likes of Woodhouse won’t make the top dogs interested.

After that the fans were revved up for another thriller between Tony Bellow and Ovil McKenzie. Unfortunately it wasn’t anything near what was expected. Both fighters threw little shots let alone bombs. And if my memory is correct then they landed just over 100 punches between them over the 12 rounds. All i can say for the fight is that Bellow won and if you haven’t seen it yet don’t bother watching it.

Next up was the fight that was to be the main event before Murray-Mitchell was moved back onto the card. And thank goodness it wasn’t the main event as Nicky Cook was stopped in less time than it took for his ring walk. It has been confirmed that Cook had a prolapsed disc in his back but why he was fighting in the first place with such an injury we’ll never know.

It was left to John Murray and Kevin Mitchell to lighten up the night and they sure did. After a round of action it had already topped the rest of the bill that was broadcast on Sky Sports. John fought his usual style, charging forward style, taking what Kevin had before dispatching his own bombs. Kevin showed good movement from the start but Murray was always quick to catch up to the Dagenham fighter. The way he cut the ring off was very impressive but the punishment he was taking was unnecessary.

That punishment was getting worse as his right eye started to swell up as Kevin was beginning to sit down on his punches much more. In the 7th Mitchell caught Murray and with just under 20 seconds left another left hook had him out on his feet. He was backed up but the bell came to his rescue.

The minute break wasn’t enough as he was dropped early in the 8th. He was shaky when getting up and another combination from Mitchell was enough for Richie Davies to rightfully call off the fight.

Mitchell spoke kindly of Murray after the fight saying when he wins a world title he promises to defend it against Murray. With Humberto Soto moving to 140lbs his World Boxing Council (WBC) title should become vacant and also Juan Manuel Marquez will be moving up again to fight Manny Pacquiao in August and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s stripped of his titles. Then there’s Brandon Rios and Miguel Vazquez who hold the WBA and IBF titles.

In other action on the card:

Ricky Burns TKO 1 Nicky Cook
WBO super featherweight title
Tony Bellew UD 12 Ovill McKenzie < Commonwealth (British Empire) light heavyweight title vacant BBBofC British light heavyweight title Frankie Gavin SD 12 Curtis Woodhouse Rocky Fielding pts 6 Jamie Ambler Joe Selkirk TKO 1 Terry Carruthers Ronnie Heffron Pts 6 Barrie Jones Craig Evans TD 5 Scott Moises Paul Butler Pts 4 Anwar Alfadli John Loveday Pts 4 Howard Daley Callum Johnson Pts 4 Lee Duncan Mike Stafford Pts 4 Paul Morris