By Nate Anderson: 2008 Olympic middleweight Bronze Medal winner for Ireland Darren Sutherland (3-0, 3 KOs) put on an impressive punching display in stopping Georgian Vepkhia Tchilaia (9-10, 5 KOs) in the 4th round on Friday night at the Fenton Manor Sports Complex, Stoke, Staffordshire. Sutherland, 27, was much too strong for Tchilaia, battering him at will for three rounds until referee John Keane stepped in and stopped the bout at 1:24 of the 4th round.
At the time of the stoppage, Tchilaia was against the ropes and was taking massive punishment without firing anything back at Sutherland. The win was very impressive, because Tchilaia is the same opponent that James DeGale, the 2008 Olympic middleweight Gold Medal winner for Britain, had fought in February in an unimpressive performance for the former gold medal winner.
Sutherland, however, was simply much too strong for Tchilaia to handle and he ended up getting beaten up pretty badly in the four rounds before the referee stepped in and stopped the one-sided affair.
In the first round, Sutherland came out jabbing Tchilaia over and over again with a powerful jab that was almost like a power punch. Tchilaia tried to block the punches but many of them got through anyway and seemed jolt his head each time.
Sutherland then began to mix it left-right combinations that were thrown with a lot of power and made a loud noise when the punches would land. For his part, Tchilaia threw only four or five punches during the entire round. He was mostly busy taking shots and wasn’t in the position to fire back with much.
Sutherland continued to throw a lot of jabs in the 2nd round, at least in the first minute of the round. After that, Sutherland began to fire off big right hand shots, nailing Tchilaia with uppercuts, straight rights and hooks to the head.
Tchilaia spent a good portion of the round in the corner taking punishment. He was no longer throwing anything back at this point and looked very unhappy as he was just taking punishment. This obviously wasn’t going to be like his fight with DeGale which was mostly a slapping affair with Tchilaia not taking any real kind of punishment.
Sutherland came out throwing bombs in the 3rd round, nailing Tchilaia repeatedly with left-right combinations to the head. After a minute of lighting him up, Sutherland went back to tenderizing him with his powerful jab for most of the remainder of the round.
In the 4th round, Sutherland took out the stops and went after Tchilaia, pounding him with one huge shot after another while Tchilaia futilely attempted to cover up on the ropes. Seeing that Tchilaia was taking needless punishment, referee John Keane stepped in between Sutherland and Tchilaia and stopped the one-sided fight at 1:24 of the round.
“Another tough opponent,” Sutherland said after the bout. “He [Tchilaia] could take a shot. He wasn’t really doing too much, but he was taking the shots well. I had to be patient. I’ve got a good jab and I’m going to use it. I’m just going to take my time. I don’t need to be a first round knockout artist. I’m just going to keep on improving each time. I’m a young 27.”
Overall, it was a very good performance for Sutherland. He looks very powerful and has an excellent jab that will make him a threat to the best fighters in the super middleweight division. However, at only 5’9”, Sutherland is going to have some problems against the taller super middleweights because he’s kind of short for the division.
Even at middleweight, Sutherland would be giving up a lot of height to middleweights like Kelly Pavlik and a few other good ones. That might limit how far Sutherland can go as a fighter at the world level. He looks good enough to possibly be champion on the local level.
But due to his advanced age, Sutherland is going to have to move a little faster than other fights because he really can’t afford to wait around three to four years like many fighters typically have to do. If Sutherland waits too long before stepping it up, he’ll find himself in his 30s with little time to grab a title and hold it down for any length of time before he starts getting older and fading as a fighter.
I think he’s good enough right now to cause some problems for middleweights. I wouldn’t advise for Sutherland to fight as a super middleweight because the division is deep and there are taller, faster and much more talented fighters in the division at this time. Sutherland would be better served to lose some weight and move down to middleweight where I have no doubts that he could win a title because the division has a lot of mediocre fighters, including the champions.
In other action on the same card, super featherweight Gary Sykes (12-0, 4 KOs) defeated Anthony Crolla (13-2, 5 KOs) by a 10-round decision in the British super featherweight title eliminator bout. Referee Richard James Davies scored it 97-94 for Sykes.
The bout had a lot of back and forth action with each fighter trading every other round. Both Sykes and Crolla threw over 900 punches in the 10 round, which is an incredibly high number of punches. Crolla, 22, controlled the first two rounds landing the more accurate shots.
Both rounds very close, however. Sykes came back in round three and four and landed a lot of hard hooks and combinations. Sykes fought well for the first two minutes of both rounds, but then faded and let Crolla take over in the last minute.
With the fight up for grabs, Sykes finished strong by winning both the 9th and 10th rounds. Crolla looked tired in the last part of the fight and had lost most of his power by then.
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