By Nate Anderson: Making his pro debut, super middleweight prospect Darren Sutherland (1-0, 1 KOs) stopped Georgian Georgi Iliev (1-5, 1 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled six-round bout on Thursday night at the Dublin City University, in Dublin, Ireland. Sutherland, 26, an Olympian for the Irish team in the 2008 Olympics, staggered Iliev with a big right hand late in the round, prompting for referee David Irving to stop the bout at 2:42 of the 1st round.
Sutherland showed excellent power, bombing a badly over-matched Iliev with single shots to the body and head. However, Sutherland’s defense was nearly nonexistent, allowing Iliev to hit him more often than he would have liked. Additionally, Sutherland’s hand speed was poor in comparison to other top level super middleweights in the division, and this is something he’s going to have to work on if he wants to compete with the better fighters in the division.
After taking a handful of right hands and jabs from Iliev, Sutherland got serious and started blasting him with power shots to the head, uppercuts, hooks, mainly. Near the end of the round, Sutherland nailed Iliev with a big uppercut, causing him to back up to the corner. Sutherland then hit him with a big right hand, staggering him badly.
At this point, referee David Irving stepped in and halted the fight. With his good power, Sutherland would be trouble for many of the top fighters, but he clearly has to work on his defense and hand speed if he plans on competing for any major titles someday.
“I felt naked. No vest, no head gear,” Sutherland said after, referring to the fact that he was fighting for the first time as a professional. “I enjoyed it, you know. I’m really disappointed I didn’t get to do a few more rounds. I could see straight away when I started using my jab. I could have taken him out at anytime, but I didn’t want to. I was trying to see if I could get another round. I took a few silly jabs. Little things, you know. I’m always going to look at things to improve all the time. My objective is to improve in every fight. This is my Christmas, I’m really enjoying this.”
In other action, Commonwealth (British Empire) bantamweight champion Jason Booth (31-5, 12 KOs) stopped challenger Sean Hughes (15-8-1, 1 KOs) in the 10th round. The fight was stopped after the 10th, a round in which Hughes was knocked down by a fight from Booth and punished badly in the round with heavy shots to the head and body. In the 9th round, Hughes, 26, was hurt a couple of times, the first with a powerful left hook to the body, followed by a right hand to the head that caused Hughes’ legs to sag for a brief moment.
Hughes, 5’9″, used his big five inch height advantage to control the action in the opening round, landing well with long jabs to the head and good right hands. Booth, 31, only 5’4″, kept coming forward, but he mostly was picked off by right hands from Hughes in the round. Booth controlled the action in the 2nd round, landing well to the body and hitting him with hard shots. Hughes continued to land his own punches, as Booth’s defense was mostly porous.
However, Hughes had little power to speak of on his punches, and was no match for Booth when the two stood in front of each other trading shots. In the 3rd round, Booth continued to land the harder shots, now both landing the more powerful shots and the more numerous punches. In the 4th round, Booth made the mistake of staying in too close to Hughes, which seemed to negate a lot of Booth’s power on his shots.
At close range, Booth proved to be inadequate at infighting and only succeeded in taking a lot of head shots from Hughes, the better inside fighter of the two. In the 5th round, Booth once again fought on the outside, coming in to land his hard shots and the moving back outside again. In rounds six through eight, Booth used a steady body attack to wear Hughes down, taking all the fight out of him, tiring him out.
In the 9th, Hughes fought well in the opening seconds of the round. However, Booth came on and quickly hurt Hughes with a right hand to the head. Later on, near the end of the round, Booth landed a big left hook to the body that hurt Hughes for the second time in the round and causing him to sag briefly. In the 10th round, Booth dropped Hughes with a right to the midsection, causing him to take a knee.
Hughes got up at the count of six and continued fighting, courageously firing off shots despite being badly hurt. Booth then stalked him around the ring, working him over with additional body shots and trying hard to take him out. After the round ended, the fight was quickly stopped by Hughes’ corner.