By Aaron Klein: Former BBBofC British light middleweight champion Ryan Rhodes (39-4, 27 KOs) recaptured his title with a 9th round KO of champion Gary Woolcombe (25-2, 10 KOs) on Friday night to recapture his title at the York Hall, in Bethnal Green, London. Rhodes, 31, who had last held the BBBofC British light middleweight title 10 years ago in 1997, incredibly regained it with a stunning 9th round KO of the young 25 year-old champion Woolcombe.
Rhodes, the much more powerful puncher of the two, dominated almost every round of the fight and dropped Woolcombe in the 6th and 9th rounds. The knockdown in the 9th round, a viscous clubbing right hand to the side of Woolcombes’ head, dropped him to the canvas where he lay flat on his back. Referee Mickey Vann didn’t bother to count for Woolcombe was badly hurt and stayed down for several minutes. The fight was officially stopped at 0:37 of the round 9th round.
Going into the fight, it was unclear how well the southpaw Rhodes, 31, would do against the young champ, because of advanced Rhodes’ age. However, he immediately made it clear in the opening rounds that he was the superior fighter both in speed and power as he controlled the opening three rounds with his powerful left hand. Woolcombe was rarely able to mount his own attacks because of the constant work and movement of Rhodes.
Rhodes looked to be tiring in the 4th round, a round in which Woolcombe landed well with his right hand shots. However, it didn’t last long because Rhodes came back well in the 5th round, stunning Woolcombe on two occasions with hard combinations to the head. In the 6th round, Rhodes dropped Woolcombe after tagging him with three consecutive left hands. Woolcombe took a knee, got up and then took a knee again at the urging of his corner. In the 7th round, Rhodes hurt Woolcombe with a big right uppercut to the head. Woolcombe showed real courage and determination, coming back late in the round to land some effective combinations.
In the 8th round, Woolcombe continued with his good work, out-landing Rhodes by a significant proportion in the round. It seemed as if the fight hard turned around based on the will and hard work of Woolcombe, who looked completely rejuvenated. However, Rhodes came back in the 9th round, several hard left hands in the opening moments, followed by a wicked right hand to the side of Woolcombes’ head, knocking him to the canvas on his back. The fight was immediately stopped by the referee.
In the other action on the night, heavyweight John McDermott (25-3, 16 KOs) stopped the hard-punching Pele Reid (19-5-2, 17 KOs) in the 2nd round of a scheduled 10-round bout to win the vacant BBNofC English heavyweight title. McDermott, 27, took advantage of a wild right hand miss from Reid, which caused him to be off balance for a second, letting McDermott have an opening to drive though a flurry of shots that hurt Reid, causing him to back up to the ropes and try to cover up. The action was topped to reinsert Reid’s mouthpiece which had been knocked out during the furious attack by McDermott.
As soon as the action resumed, McDermott continued with his devastating attack, hitting Reid with a big right uppercut and driving him backwards to the ropes where McDermott let loose with a storm of punches while Reid helplessly tried to cover and block them. Reid, now very hurt, attempted to initiate a crude clinch by wrapping McDermott in head lock with his left arm, but this left McDermott’s right hand free and he used it to pound Reid freely with several right hands causing the referee Terry O’Connor to step in and stop the fight at 1:45 of the 2nd round.
In the 1st round, Reid, 34, came out looking very tight and not particularly fast, as he landed several right hands but missed wildly on a couple of others. He looked overly muscular and a bit amateurish in his style. Almost immediately, McDermott, the more technical fighter of the two, began landing combinations while blocking the wild swings from Reid. Around midpoint in the round, Reid switched to southpaw perhaps to confuse McDermott. I didn’t seem to have much effect because he continued landing combinations much as before. After several wild misses, Reid finally landed several nice shots, enough to win the round by a small margin based on the power of his shots.
In the 2nd round, Reid came out wild, throwing a huge haymaker that missed badly, allowing McDermott to tee-off with a flurry of left-right combinations to the head of Reid. Mixing in uppercuts and hooks, McDermott drove Reid from the middle of the ring to the ropes where the action was stopped briefly by the referee to fix the mouthpiece of Reid. Afterwards, McDermott let loose a blizzard of shots, throwing them hard and fast and catching Reid repeatedly. After several moments, the referee stepped in and halted the fight with Reid taking unending punishment from McDermott on the ropes.
Before this bout, McDermott had been trying for the past three years to rebuild his once promising career after being flattened in the 1st round by Max Skelton in 2005. Since then, McDermott has had a string of impressive wins over Scott Gammer, Paul King, Luke Simpkin, Vitaly Shkraba, and Daniel Peret.