By Chris Williams: Welterweight Chas Symonds (14-1, 5 KOs) defeated Alexandrs Spitko (4-6, 3 KOs) in a quick controversial stopped in the 3rd round on Friday night at the Goresbrook Leisure Centre, Dagenham, in Essex. Both fighters were trading shots in the 3rd round, when Symonds landed several big shots that caused Spitko to back up to the ropes temporarily where he then clubbed him with a left hook that pushed him off balance against the ropes. At this point, the referee Jeff Hinds moved in and halted the fight at 2:16 of the round. However, Spitko, 22, looked fine and ready to continuing fight.
Neither fighter focused much on defense or the use of a jab in the fight, as they threw bombs at each from the very first round. Symonds, 26, appeared to get the better of the action in the first round, land some big hooks to the head and body. However, Spitko continued pressing the fight to Symonds and hitting him with big shots repeatedly. At first, it seemed as if Symonds would be too much for Spitko, because he was hitting him with some really big right hands in the 1st half of the round. However, Spitko returned fire in the second part of the round, and hit Symonds with some tremendous shots to the head. Symonds, a good fighter, didn’t focus much on his defense during any part of the round, which made it easy for Spitko to land his shots.
In the second round, both fighters traded huge shots as they stood toe-to-toe for most of the round, hitting each back and forth with powerful hooks. Spitko, the better conditioned of the two, appeared to be landing the better shots over the course of the round. Symonds, however, made it very close with a big surge at the end of the round with handful of powerful hooks to the head.
In the 3rd round, after a good start by Spitko, he started getting nailed by some especially big left hooks from Symonds, who once he saw that he could land one of them, he started throwing nothing but left hooks. Spitko, a pretty bad defensive fighter in his own right, didn’t come close to blocking any of the shots. At this point, he should have been focusing more on using his boxing skills, possibly tying to move more because Symonds looked really focused once he started landing the flood of left hooks.
Instead, however, Spitko kept going right at Symonds and in the process, he was hit with several shots to the head, ending with the left hand that was more of a push than a punch that caused the referee to step in and stop the fight at 2:16 of the round. If the referee had let the fight go on a little while longer, who knows?
Maybe Symonds would have rightfully stopped Spitko, but the way the round was being fought up until then, with both fighters engaging in back and forth action, Spitko himself may have been the one that scored a knockout given his huge power and aggressive offense.