By Jim Dower: Carl Frampton (16-0, 11 KO’s) stayed unbeaten on Saturday night in defeating the powerful EBU super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (27-4, 19 KO’s) by a 9th round TKO to take his title at the Odyssey Arena, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
The fight ended when the 26-year-old Martinez walked into a short right hand from Frampton that sent him down on the canvas. Martinez got back to his feet but was staggering. Realizing that Martinez was too hurt to continue the referee then halted the bout at 2:46 of the round.
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British and Commonwealth featherweight champion Lee Selby (14-1, 5 KO’s) totally dominated an over-matched and much smaller Martin Lindsay (20-2, 7 KO’s) in beating him by a lopsided 12 round points unanimous decision by the scores of 118-110, 117-111 and 118-109. Lindsay fought well in the 1st round, but then badly out-boxed in the remaining 11 rounds of the fight.
Lindsay’s left eye started swelling up from the 3rd round, and by the 12th, it looked really bad. Selby ended up with swelling around his right eye. It was like target practice for Selby in each round, as he was constantly hitting Lindsay with hard body and head shots. The body shots seemed to bother Lindsay a lot more than head shots. The most Lindsay could do in the fight was throw an occasional hard shot.
For some reason he chose not to throw combinations, and that’s something that would have helped him a lot. He still wouldn’t have won the fight because he was way out of his class, but it would have helped.
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Former middleweight world title challenger Andy Lee (29-2, 20 KO’s) surprisingly had to struggle to defeat Anthony Fitzgerald (13-4, 4 KO’s) I earing an unimpressive 10 round points decision victory. Lee won by the score 98-94. Lee didn’t show any improvement at all from his knockout loss to former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. from last year in June. The light hitting Fitzgerald was able to put a lot of pressure on Lee and wear him down much in the same way Chavez Jr. did, except that Fitzgerald didn’t have the power to take Lee out the way Chavez Jr. did.
This was Lee’s first fight with new trainer Adam Booth, who replaced Lee’s former trainer Emanuel Steward. Lee landed a lot of punches, but he was constantly pressured by Fitzgerald and frequently he would retreat to the ropes where he took punishment. This was the same way Lee fought in his loss to Chavez Jr. Lee would retreat to the ropes to rest his thin legs and he’d take terrible punishment. It doesn’t look like Lee is going to go far in the sport if he can’t change the way he fights.
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Former EBU middleweight champion Grzegorz Proksa (29-2, 21 KO’s) bounced back from a knockout loss to WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin by defeating Norbert Szekeres (13-21-3, 8 KO’s) by a 6 round points decision. The referee scored it 60-54. Proksa likely was hoping for a better performance than this because he should have been able to stop Szekeres instead of setting for a points decision.
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41-year-old heavyweight Martin Rogan (15-3, 7 KO’s) defeated Ladislav Kovarik (10-13, 5 KO’s0 by a four round points decision by the score 40-36.
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Other boxing results on the card:
Callum Smith TKO 1 Tommy Tolan
Eamonn O’Kane Pts 6 Gary Boulden
James Fryers Pts 4 Billy Smith
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