By Lewis Croft: After a thrilling contest at the Echo Arena in December, Liverpool’s Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion Tony ‘Bomber’ Bellew (15-0, 10 KO’s) stopped Prizefighter winner and former Commonwealth champion, Ovill ‘The Upsetter’ McKenzie (18-10, 7 KO’s) in the 8th round. In front of his home crowd, Bellew was looking to impress, particularly after his lacklustre performance in his previous defence against Bob Ajisafe (8-2, 2 KO’s).
Things never went exactly to plan for the home town hero. Punching harder than his record suggests, McKenzie landed some big shots knocking Bellew down twice inside the first two rounds. Showing good heart Bellew rose and tried to box from the outside. McKenzie worked hard for the first half of the fight and it began to take its toll on him. In the 8th round he started to tire and was forced back to the ropes by a determined Bellew. Landing a crushing left hook flush on the chin of McKenzie, fell heavily on to the canvas. Sensing victory Bellew rushed from his neutral corner at McKenzie and the referee felt necessary to stop the bout. It certainly was a very premature stoppage and this view was echoed throughout the arena.
This was a great learning curve for the hard hitting Scouser. He would have learned more from this fight than he would have by bulldozing another journeyman. Unsurprisingly a rematch bout has been scheduled to take place on the 19th February, in the historic York Hall located at the heart of Bethnal Green. With Nathan Cleverly (21-0, 10 KO’s) vacating his British title to fight for World honours later in the year, this bout is for both the Commonwealth and British Light-heavyweight title.
I expect this to be another explosive night of boxing. I think Bellew this time around will be a lot better prepared defensively. He was caught too many times in there first bout and could have been costly. To answer any critics I think Bellew will look to finish this fight early and try to land his big shots right from the start. If Bellew comes through this test a potential bout with newly crowned EBU champion Danny McIntosh (13-1, 7 KO’s) could be on the horizon and possibly a shot at Nathan Cleverly in 2012.
Also featuring in a stacked undercard is Frankie Gavin, Ronnie Heffron, Vinny Mitchell, Bradley Skeete, Ahmet Patterson, Billy Morgan, Freddie ‘Luke’ Turner and a Southern Area Heavyweight Championship bout between Larry Olubamiwo against John McDermott. Frank Warren looks set to start 2011 with a bang.
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