By Nate Anderson: Former WBU featherweight champion Derry Matthews (21-2, 11 KOs) was stopped in the 9th round of a scheduled 12-round bout by undefeated Martin Lindsay (13-0, 5 KOs) on Saturday in an BBBofC British Featherweight Title Eliminator at the Hillsborough Leisure Centre, Sheffield, in Yorkshire. Matthews, 24, was ahead in the fight going into the 9th round when Lindsay, 26, tagged him with a huge left hook to the jaw, sending Matthews crashing to the canvas where his head hit the bottom of the rope. It was a case of being knocked out before he even hit the canvas. Referee Marcus McDonnell immediately moved in and stopped the fight at 2:06 of the 9th round.
The ringside doctor was immediately summoned to check on Matthews and oxygen was given to him as a precaution. It was a really bad knockout, reminding me in a lot of ways of lightweight Amir Khan’s recent knockout loss a couple of weeks ago, only worse. For Matthews, who’s ranked #6 in the WBO and #8 in the IBF, it was his second bad knockout in his last three fights. In April, he was stopped by Choi Tseveenpurev in another bad knockout loss. Although Matthews recently rebounded from that loss with an 8-round decision over John Gicharu in July, it appears that it was maybe a little too soon for Matthews to be fighting a tough foe given his almost equally bad stoppage to Tseveenpurev only five months earlier.
Matthews looked good in the early rounds against Lindsay, dominating the first through the third rounds but starting in the 4th round, Matthews didn’t look good well with the pressure that Lindsay was putting on him. Indeed, Lindsay was following the blueprint of Tseveenpurev’s recent win over Matthews by rushing him and hitting him with big shots. As I mentioned, it didn’t work quite so good for Lindsay in the first three rounds, as Matthews used smart combinations to pick Lindsay off from the outside and tag him when he would attempt to rush inside on him.
In the 2nd round, Matthews knocked Lindsay down with a left hand as he was rushing in trying to deliver one of his big hooks. After the knockdown, Lindsay fought cautiously in the 3rd round, making sure that Matthews didn’t hit him with anything big. In the 4th round, Lindsay suddenly began fighting with much more aggression, rushing in on Matthews and hitting him with big shots. Near the end of the round, Matthews was rocked by a hard right hand from Lindsay that knocked him back and almost knocked Matthews down.
In the same round, Matthews was cut on the left corner of his eye, which became a problem in the rounds that followed. Lindsay continued to batter Matthews with big shots in round five, hitting him with big right hands and left hooks. Matthews began to look tired and hurt and didn’t look equipped to stop Lindsay’s brawling tactics. Matthews still looked like the better boxer of the two, but he couldn’t handle Lindsay’s pressure and big shots.
In the 6th round, Matthews’s cut began to bleed even more – leaking into his left eye – and at the same time Matthew’s nose began to bleed as well. His nose looked as if it might have been broken by one of Lindsay’s big shots. In the 7th round, Lindsay tagged Matthews with several big clubbing right hands to the side of the head. Incredibly, Matthews stayed upright but he didn’t look like the punches benefited him any. In the 8th round, Matthews came back strong, landing some really nice right hands to the head. Lindsay, however, made it easy for him by not doing much in the round.
For the most part, it looked as if he was taking the round off. In the opening of the 9th round, Matthews fought well, landing some effective right hands to the head. Suddenly, however, out of nowhere Lindsay cranked up a big left hook that crashed into the head of Matthews, snapping his head back from the impact and sending him down on the canvas where he landed with the back of head hitting the bottom ropes. His left leg stayed flexed for several seconds, no doubt a product of his concussion. The fight was then immediately halted, and the ringside doctor rushed in and started administering oxygen to Matthews.
This loss seems to suggest that Matthews needs to take a long rest from boxing and when he does come back, he needs to start slowly against much light-hitting opposition than the likes of Lindsay or Tseveenpurev. I’m not sure Matthews will go for that, however, being a proud fighter but he needs to consider it, because I think he might be susceptible for additional concussions in the future if he rushes things too quickly against quality opposition.
In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have fought someone as good as Lindsay this soon, because he clearly didn’t look well when he started getting hit hard starting in the 4th round.