By Eugene Carnachan: New Zealand’s Shane Cameron (29-2-0) knocked out Monte Barrett (34-9-2) in the fourth round at Auckland’s Sky City Casino last night.

Both fighters came in, in outstanding condition and the usually humble and respectful Barrett hadn’t endeared himself to Cameron or the New Zealand public with his vitriolic and sometimes profanity laden pre-fight banter.

Barrett was promoted as the fighter ‘no New Zealander could beat’ and while his 2011 victory over David Tua was well known his seventh round knockout of Auckland raised Jimmy Thunder way back in 2000 was relatively unknown.

In the first round Barrett as predicted looked to establish his jab in trying to nullify Cameron advancing forward. Cameron himself was looking to do the same thing in jabbing his way in to unload his right hand.

In the second round Cameron was doubling up on his jab in looking to bull his way in and it proved effective in getting him in range and took away Barrett’s ability to control the fight from the outside – what he did well in his two fights with David Tua.

Cameron looked sharper than we have seen him for in some time and looked to be employing the strategy of a duck shooter with bad eyes whose hunting strategy is to fire as many bullets as possible in hoping one of them hits something flying past. While Cameron is not hard of sight his basic approach was more calculated but similar; throw more leather than the other man in looking to wear him down and land a big shot.

With Cameron looking to bore his way in it became apparent that Barrett’s game plan was to try and catch him by shooting right hand leads over the top of Cameron’s jab. Similarly Cameron when Barrett was trying to fight off the front foot was employing the exact same strategy, each fighter looking to time the home run right hand.

One of those right hands caught Barrett shaking him up and forcing him to back pedal.

The third round was a very good round for the much busier Cameron as he bulled his way in and really started outhustling Barrett and in many respects the writing was on the wall that Barrett couldn’t control the ring real estate and Cameron was, landing well with both jabs and the occasional right hand.

The fourth round was going much the same way as Barrett was forced to bite down and exchange instead of controlling range, with Cameron getting the much better out of the exchanges and the fight ended when Barrett came forward Cameron threw an hellacious overhand right and it was all she wrote.

Cameron started celebrating immediately knowing instinctively Barrett was in tweety bird land.

Big man coming forward, big man throwing, something had to give and it did and it was Barrett’s senses as they were scrambled by the impact, Barrett was never getting up after that shot and the ref could of counted to two hundred and Barrett would have struggled to make it up.

This win for Cameron has redemptive qualities after his 2009 knock out loss to David Tua and for all the effort Cameron puts into training it was well deserved win and sets him up for potential fights with Australian heavies Mark De Mori, Alex Leapai or Lucas Browne, all of which could be potentially great match ups as they much Cameron are front fight fighters.