By Nate Anderson: BBBofC British middleweight champion Wayne Elcock (19-3, 9 KOs) defeated challenger Darren McDermott (14-1-1, 9 KOs) in the 2nd round of a scheduled 12-round bout at the Civic Centre, Wolverhampton, in West Midlands on Friday night. Elcock, 34, was mostly having his way with McDermott in the 1st round, hitting him with big shots and giving him problems with his power. However, early in the 2nd round, Elcock came rushing forward to get in punching range when he clashed heads with MdDermott, opening a nasty cut on his left cheek.
The cut, a particular nasty one, bled badly and McDermott’s cheek swelled up fast in the seconds after the clash. Referee Howard John Foster then stopped the action and had McDermott’s cut examined by the ringside doctor, who immediately had the fight stopped, giving Elcock the victory. Needless to say, the fight was disappointing for everyone – boxing fans, Elcock and most of all for McDermott, who had trained hard for the bout and was unable to prove himself before the fight quickly ended.
Elcock was making his first appearance since being stopped in the 5th round by IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham in December, a fight in which Elcock gave Abraham huge problems, hitting him often, and was leading the fight at the time of the stoppage. Indeed, Elcock did a better job against Abraham than did Edison Miranda, who was blasted out in the 4th round by Abraham.
Elcock, a powerful puncher, fought well in the first round using combinations and movement to keep McDermott guessing. He landed some good body shots as well in the round. However, around the midpoint of the round, the taller 6’1″ McDermott began using his powerful jab to tag Elcock from a distance. Not wanting to get his with the jabs, Elcock began rushing forward quickly, diving inside so as to avoid getting hit with McDermott’s powerful jabs on the way in. However, even then, you could see that Elcock was going to be initiating head clashes because of his head down style of charging in on McDermott.
In the second round, it was McDermott who opened the round on the attack, firing off jabs and left-right combinations to the head of Elcock. Seeming not to like being hit from the outside, Elcock once again came rushing forward with both hands throwing leather, however, instead of landing any punches, he rammed heads together with McDermott, opening a bad cut over his left eye. The cut, as I already mentioned, quickly led to the fight being stopped, giving Elcock the TKO win.
Afterwards, Elcock had this to say, I am not happy with the stoppage. I was just getting started. That’s boxing. I didn’t even get into second gear.”
In other action on the card, welterweight Mark Lloyd (11-1, 3 KOs) stopped Andrew Alan Lowe (7-2, 1 KOs) in the 8th round of a 10-round bout, to win the vacant BBBofC Midlands Area welterweight title. Lloyd, 32, hurt Lowe with a right hook in the 8th round, snapping Lowe’s head, then followed with a powerful right uppercut that snapped Lowe’s head up violently. Lloyd then landed a brief flurry of shots, prompting for referee Terry O’Connor to move in and halt the fight at 1:31 of the 8th round.
It looked, however, that Lowe was alright at the time of the stoppage, but perhaps due to the punishment he’d sustained in the past two rounds, including the 8th, the referee didn’t want to chance it and let him continue and possibly get hurt badly.
The fight was highly competitive, with Lloyd taking the action to Lowe in rounds one through three, nailing him with big hooks and keeping him pinned against the ropes. In rounds four and give, Lowe came back strong and outworked Lloyd by a big margin in both rounds. Though Lloyd still was landing the far harder shots even though he was getting out-worked by a large margin.
In rounds six and seven, Lloyd came back, keeping Lowe mostly pinned to the ropes where he was worked over with left hooks, right hands and a lot of combinations to the head. Not much of a puncher to begin with, lacking both speed and power, by this time in the fight Lowe was really pushing his punches and looking very weak and slow.
Lloyd was tired, too, but he still was capable of putting a lot of power on his shots, especially with his left hand. At the same time, Lowe was doing a poor jab of blocking any of Lloyd’s punches and was forced to eat them almost nonstop.
In the 8th round, Lloyd began to really punish Lowe, not letting him get off the ropes for the entire round and hitting him with big shots one after another. Finally, Lloyd tagged Lowe with a sweeping right hook that crashed off his jaw, whiplashing his head to the side. He followed it with a big right uppercut that had the same effect of snapping Lowe’s head back. After that, Lloyd landed several more shots, the action then being interrupted by the referee who stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:31 of the round.