By Nate Anderson: Nigerian super middleweight Tony Salam (8-1, 4 KOs) defeated Richard Horton (6-2, 1 KOs) by a 4th round TKO to win the vacant BBBofC Southern Area super middleweight title on Saturday night at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, in London. The bout was stopped in the 4th round after a nasty cut opened up over the left eye of Horton. The referee then marched Horton over to the ringside doctor, who advised that the fight be stopped. At 1:23, Richard James Davies officially stopped the bout.
Horton, 27, was only competitive in the 1st round when he came out fast and was able to land some nice right hands and lefts to the body of the southpaw Salem. However, it was almost immediately apparent that Horton had much slower hand speed than Salem and was going to have problems as the fight progressed.
Salem, 25, who had been knocked out in his bout prior to this one by Courtney Fry in February, looked cautious, as if he was afraid to run into a big shot from Horton. As the round neared the end, Salem seemed to understand that Horton had little power and wasn’t much of a threat to him. Salem then began pasting him with big shots in the last seconds of the round.
In the 2nd, Salem jabbed Horton continuously, showing off his fast hands on Horton’s face. Horton was still landing right hands but his work rate was way down from the previous round and he was looking much less confident.
In the 3rd round, Salem was now landing his left hand shots almost at will, having no problems with finding Horton’s head. Horton was now only connecting rarely and having to time Salem to get in any shots. He kept trying but he wasn’t fast enough with both his hands and his feet.
Horton continued to getting hit often by Salem in the 4th round, and the fight was looking more and more one-sided as Salem pounded away on Horton’s face. Horton tried fighting back but he was too lacking in the hand speed department to make the fight competitive. Finally, after taking a big left hand from Salem, Horton turned away in pain, with a bad cut opening up above his left eye.
The referee then stopped the action and took Horton over to the ringside doctor, where after a brief examination, the fight was then stopped. Horton looked upset naturally at the stoppage, but he may have been better off this way. If the fight had been allowed to have continued, I think Horton would have taken an awful lot of punishment and likely stopped anyway. He was just far too slow, limited and weak to compete with Salem.