Hall Obliterates Pryce

By Boxing News - 03/16/2009 - Comments

hall45633By Nate Anderson: Making his 7th defense of his Commonwealth (British Empire) light middleweight title, champion Bradley Pryce (27-7, 17 KOs) was destroyed in two rounds by the hard punching Matthew Hall (22-1, 15 KOs) on Saturday night at the M.E.N. Arena, in Manchester, Lancashire. Hall, 24, knocked Pryce down three times in the 2nd round. After the third knockdown, from a short right hand from Hall, the referee Ian John-Lewis stepped in and halted the fight at 2:59 of the round with Pryce laying crumbled on the canvas propped up against the ropes.

Pryce, 28, had looked exceptional in his six prior defenses of his Commonwealth title, beating the likes of Andrew Facey, Anthony Small, Martin Concepcion and Marcus Portman. However, against Hall, Pryce never recovered from his first knockdown from Hall in the 2nd round, a hard right hand that snapped Pryce’s head back and sent him down. From there, Pryce was on weak legs as he was battered around the canvas by Hall, eventually getting knocked down twice more before the fight was finally stopped with one second left in the 2nd round.

Pryce got off to an excellent start, using his four inch height advantage over the shorter 5’7″ Hall to tag him with jabs from the outside. Hall could do little in the 1st round, plodding after Pryce through much of the round and eating hard jabs to the face. Pryce’s foot movement and punch assortment was excellent, and if the fight had stopped right here I would have considered him easily the winner because he looked a lot better than Hall at this point in the fight.

In the last minute of the round, Hall, however, was able to catch up to Pryce and land some decent left hands to the head and one could left hand rabbit shot. That punch seemed to stun Pryce slightly as the round ended. In the first minute of the 2nd round, Pryce moved around the ring swiftly, but then made a mistake of resting on the ropes for a little too long.

Hall then moved in and after a brief bit of wrestling between the two fighters, Hall staggered and then dropped Pryce with a hard right hand to the head. Pryce got to his feet, his legs looking totally gone to jelly as he unsteadily moved around the ring. Instead of clinching Hall, Pryce attempted to fight him against the ropes.

Hall poured in a number of big head shots and the referee looked in closely seeming to be about to stop the fight at one point. Hall quickly drove him back against the ropes and began teeing off with big right hands and more rabbit shots, one of which caused Pryce to stumble and almost fall on his face.

After getting nailed several times with big shots, Pryce was finally able to land several punches of his own, none of which had any power on them. Hall, however, fired back with a huge right uppercut and then a left hook that nearly decapitated Pryce, dropping him for the second time in the round with 39 seconds left.

Pryce got up much too quickly from the knockdown, and as soon as the action resumed, Hall tour into him with right hands as Pryce once again made the mistake of not clinching and finding on the ropes. Hall then blasted away at him with two left hooks and then a right hand to the head that sent Pryce down for the third and final time in the round. Referee Ian John-Lewis then stepped in and stopped the bout at 2:59 of the round.