By Dan Ambrose: Former BBBofC British welterweight champion Young Mutley (24-3, 13 KOs) stopped Kevin Placide (9-4-1, 5 KOs) in the 4th round of a scheduled 8-round bout on Friday night at the George Carnall Leisure Centre, Davyhulme, in Manchester, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Mutley, 31, was trailing in the fight in the fourth round, when he suddenly landed a short left hook that dropped Placide to the canvas. Perhaps forgetting about the standing eight count, Placide stayed down a little too long, attempting to buy time to clear his head, and was subsequently counted out by referee Phil Edwards.
As good as the win was for the former champion Mutley, it was made less so because of how bad he looked in the fight up until the TKO. This was supposed to be a rebuilding bout for him, and Placide, an average fighter from Trinidad, was thought to be an easy opponent for Mutley to both look good against and one to sharpen his skills.
However, as it turned out, Placide, 33, was plastering him with jabs and lead left hands for two of the three rounds, and making Mutley look like an unskilled amateur fighter in comparison. Until the time of the TKO, Placide looked by far the better fighter, and the one to put your focus on for the future. However, despite having the better boxing skills, Placide’s chin wasn’t up to the mark, for he was stunned by a single right hand at the end of the 3rd round.
The punch didn’t look like much from Mutley, but judging on the effects on Placide – him slightly staggered – you’d have thought that Placide had been hit with a howitzer. The same goes for the finishing punching in the 4th round, an average-looking left hook from Mutley, which knocked Placides flat. Mutley didn’t even wind up on the punch, yet it produced the results that he was looking for.
In the 1st round, Placide fought well, fighting loose and landing jabs and straight left hands down the pipe. Mutley looked slow in comparison and quite average. I would almost say he looked shot, except that he’s always looked like this. Whatever the case, he was badly outworked in the first round, and seemed to be not even in the same class as Placide.
Mutley came back well in the 2nd round, and appeared to win it narrowly by throwing the harder punches. He was outlanded by a significant margin, but his harder punches appeared to give him enough to win the round. He still looked embarrassingly amateurish in contrast to Placide, who looked like a polished professional in comparison.
Placide would continue to give Mutley big problems in the 3rd round, as he jabbed him from the outside and planted straight left hands to the head when Mutley would wade forward to attack. This in effect completely shut down the offense of Mutley until late in the round when he hurt Placide with a big right hand at the bell.
I doubt that Placide was fully recovered in the 4th round, for not long after he was knocked down with a weak-looking left hook from Mutley. It was only the fourth punch that Mutley had thrown in the round, and it had the effect of badly hurting Placide, enough so that he couldn’t make it to his feet and was counted out by the referee.