By Scott Gilfoid: In a highly controversial decision, challenger Paul Butler (16-0, 8 KO’s) defeated IBF bantamweight champion Stuart Hall (16-3-2, 7 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision on Saturday night at on Saturday night at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom. The final judges’ scores were 115-113, a117-111 for Butler, and 115-113 for Hall.
Hall landed by far the bigger punches in the fight, and he was the one taking the fight to the light hitting Butler. It’s hard to see Butler winning the fight because his shots had such little power on them. Granted, Butler was landing a lot of punches, but he just didn’t have the power to deserve the decision.
After the fight, Butler said he’d give Hall a rematch. “He gave me a shot, so why shouldn’t I give him a shot,” Butler said.
***
Middleweight prospect Chris Eubank Jr. (16-0, 11 KO’s) defeated an over-matched Stepan Horvath (12-4, 4 KO’s) by a 6th round TKO. Eubank Jr. knocked Horvath down 4 times in the fight with Horvath getting knocked down 2 times in the 5th and 2 times in the 6th. The fight was halted after Eubank Jr. dropped Horvath with a left to the body in the 6th. Earlier in the round, Eubank Jr. had knocked him down with a left hook to the head.
Eubank Jr. knocked Horvath down twice in the 5th round with right hands to the head. Horvath did a good job of surviving the round, but it probably should have been stopped.
In the 4th round, Eubank Jr. badly hurt Horvath with a right uppercut to the head that caused Horvath to turn his back and walk away. The fight should have been stopped at that point because Horvath had turned his back, but the referee let it go on.
Eubank Jr’s father/trainer Chris Eubank Sr., wearing a sleeveless shirt to show of his arms, would come into the ring in between rounds and just stand and stare at Eubank Jr. without saying anything. There was no words of advice or anything from him. It was all very, very strange and pretty much useless.
Overall, I really wasn’t all that impressed with Eubank Jr. He gave away the 2nd and 3rd rounds by basically doing nothing, and getting nailed by a ton of hard left hooks and right hands from the light hitting Horvath. Eubank Jr. also turned his back on Horvath numerous times in the fight while showboating. If Eubank Jr. does that kind of thing against a good middleweight, he’ll get knocked out.
***
Former British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion David Price (18-2, 15 KO’s) took care of business in defeating 39-year-old Ukrainian journeyman Yaroslav Zavorotnyi (16-7, 14 KO’s) in beating him by a rather dull 10 round unanimous decision in a one-paced painfully slow fight tonight at the Sport and Congress Center, Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Alemania, Germany. The final judges’ scores were 97-93, 98-92, and 100-90.
Price did a poor job in throwing his jab. It was the same pawing jab that he’d shown in previous fights, and I saw no improvement at all in that area of his game. Price also looked slow and mechanical with his offense.
Price appeared to hurt Zavorotnyi with a body shot in the 3rd and a hard right hand to the head in the 7th. However, due to the slow pace with which Price was fighting, he was never able to do more than land 3-4 hard shots in each round. Zavorotnyi is someone that Price should have been able to destroy in a round or two, but he let the guy hang around by failing to let his hands go. Price spent a lot of time pawing with his jabs and loading up with right hands to the head and body. Zavorotnyi did a good job of smothering Price’s offense by clinching him at every opportunity.
Zavorotnyi was good for at least 1 halfway decent punch landed in every round, but his hand speed was far too slow for him to take advantage of Price’s fragile chin. Price was able to see the punches coming all night, and thus he was able to brace for the occasional hard shots that Zavorotnyi landed in the fight.
In the 10th, Zavorotnyi threw Price to the canvas and then fell on top of him. Sadly, that was the high point in the fight because there was just nothing in this one to really get excited about.
Other boxing results on the card:
Ovill McKenzie KO 2 Jon-Lewis Dickinson
Vincent Feigenbutz KO 3 Gheorghe Sabau
Noel Gevor TKO 2 Bela Juhasz
Firat Arslan UD 8 Tamas Bajzath
Comments are closed.