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By Nate Anderson: Undefeated light heavyweight prospect Tony Ballew (7-0, 4 KOs) put in a good performance on Friday night, defeating the iron-chin Jevgenijs Andrejevs (8-24, 2 KOs) by a four-round decision at the Everton Park Sports Centre, Liverpool, in Merseyside. Bellew, 25, a former three time ABA heavyweight champion, fought well throughout the four-round bout, using his 6’2” height and reach advantage to control the distance over the shorter Andrejevs. However, in the 4th round, Ballew was knocked by a left hand to his chest, which caught him off balance, knocking him to the canvas.

Ballew was unhurt, however, and finished strong, continuing his mastery over the slower, limited Andrejevs. Ballew controlled the first round using hard right hooks to the midsection and long jabs. He tended to load up on his shots, making big exaggerated moves when going to the body. Early in the first round, Andrejevs ran forward trying to throw a big haymaker left hand but missed and fell into the ropes. Bellew then tagged him with two rights while he was helpless for a moment. Bellew continued fighting well in the 2nd round, jabbing Andrejevs repeatedly and throwing hard shots to his midsection with both hands.

By Manuel Perez: Middleweight contender David Lopez (37-12, 23 KOs) put in an impressive performance on Friday night, defeating Colombian Samuel Miller (18-3, 15 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision at the Desert Diamond Casino, in Tucson, Arizona. The southpaw Lopez, 30, controlled the bout from the outset, walking Miller down and hitting him with sharp combinations to the head and body.

By Manuel Perez: Former WBC featherweight champion Kevin Kelley (60-9-2, 39 KOs) was defeated by David Rodela (11-1-2, 6 KOs) by a eight-round split decision on Friday night at the Desert Diamond Casino, in Tucson, Arizona. Kelley, now 41 and fighting as a lightweight, fought well enough to have received a draw, but a split decision loss is also quite acceptable considering he did so little in the first four rounds of the fight.

By Nate Anderson: British light middleweight prospect Matthew Hall (20-1, 13 KOs) destroyed Ciaran Healy (8-9-1, 2 KOs) in the 3rd round of a scheduled eight-round bout on Friday night at the Everton Park Sports Centre, in Liverpool, Merseyside. Hall, also known as “El Torito” (Little Bull), put in a Mike Tyson-like performance, knocking Healy, 33, down three times before the bout was finally put to a halt by referee Phil Edwards at 1:56 of the 3rd round following the third knockdown of Healy.

Hall, 24, dropped Healy with brutal left hooks to the body in the 1st and 3rd rounds and looking a lot like Ricky Hatton as well in delivering the hard shots. Healy, who previously was stopped by a number of good fighters like Andy Lee, Anthony Small and Jamie Moore, was in serious trouble seconds into the first round when Hall went after him with a fierce body attack, banging him repeatedly with left hooks, hurting him and then knocking him down. Healy, however, got up and showed great courage in making it out of the round despite being pounded to the body and continuing to be hurt by Hall until the bell signaling the end of the round. In the second round, Healy came out fast, attacking Hall with right hands.

By Nate Anderson: Lightweight Jon Thaxton (34-8, 19 KOs) resurrected his floundering career on Saturday night with a 3rd round stoppage over Juan Carlos Diaz Melero (36-2, 19 KOs) to win the vacant EBU (European) lightweight title at the Norwich Showground, in Norwich, Norfolk. The win, as good as it is, only whets the appetitive of the 34-year-old Thaxton, who would like to get a shot at one of the lightweight champions in 2009 or at least be able to fight for the chance at the WBC title, currently held by Manny Pacquiao, who will probably be vacating it shortly.

Thaxton was in good form against Melero, knocking him out with a single right hand in the 3rd round. After dropping him with a tremendous fight hand, the fight was almost immediately stopped by referee Robin Dolpierre, who officially stopped the bout at 2:29 of the 3rd round with Melero still on his back on the canvas. The ringside medical team was quickly brought into the ring as precaution and Melero was examined just in case there were any potential lingering serious problems as a result of the knockdown. Thaxton, who was stopped on cuts in the 6th round by Yuri Romanov in April, looked altogether a different fighter out there on Saturday night, attacking the Spaniard Melero like a Pit Bull in the first round, and hitting him with big left hand shots to the head.

By Ben Taafe: Undefeated Canadian light welterweight prospect Dierry Jean (15-0, 10 KOs) destroyed journeyman Fabian Luque (21-8-4, 12 KOs) in a 2nd round TKO on Saturday night at the Montreal Casino, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Jean fought in a relaxed pace in the first round, focusing on landing mostly jabs and pinpoint combinations until the latter part of the round when he opened up with some hard body shots. In the second round, Jean hit Luque with a big right hand, and then pulled him forward with both hands and nailed him with a short left-right combination sending him to the canvas with one minute to go in the round.

After he got up, Jean threw a wild left hook that missed by a mile and then while attempting to land another shot, his feet got tangled up with Luque and when he threw two more shots, both of which missed, Luque fell down because of his feet being tangled with Jean. The referee, however, missed it and called it a knockdown when in reality Luque had never been touched at all. Luque sat on the canvas for a few seconds looking at the referee in bewilderment and then got up at the count of eight and continued fighting. Jean then went after him and landed three left hooks to the body, missing three rights along the way, and then planted him with a right to the body followed by a right to the head. This time, after Luque got up the referee Alain Villeneuve stopped the bout at 2:55 of the round.

By Nate Anderson: Five years after failing an attempt to win the BBBofC British cruiserweight title in a losing effort against Mark Hobson in September 2003, Robert Norton (30-4-1, 19 KOs) finally won the elusive title on Saturday night with a one-sided 12-round unanimous decision over Micky Steeds (12-3, 3 KOs) at the Meadowside Leisure Centre, Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire. Norton, a ripe 36, knocked Steeds down once in the fight, dropping him with a cuffing right hand in the 6th round. The knockdown, however, appeared illegitimate as it was more of a push than a punch and Steeds was off balance due to him rushing forward at the time.

Besides that one glaring bad call in the fight, Norton dominated the entire fight, using his two inch and enormous five inch reach advantage to control the shorter Steeds and win an unusually easy decision. The fight was fairly boring, with few real hard punches landed in the entire fight.

By Nate Anderson: Undefeated light heavyweight Danny McInstosh (8-0, 3 KOs) stopped 31 year-old Steven Spartacus (19-5, 11 KOs) in the 7th round of a scheduled 8-round bout to claim the vacant BBBofC English light heavyweight title on Saturday night at the Norwich Showground, in Norwich, Norfolk. McIntosh, 28, knocked Spartacus down with a right hand to the back of the head followed two left hooks.

By Nate Anderson: Commonwealth (British Empire) featherweight champion Paul Truscott (12-0, 1 KOs) defeated Alex Miskirtchian (13-2-1, 3 KOs) by a narrow eight-round decision in a non-title bout on Friday night at the Meadowside Leisure Centre, in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Truscott, 22, won by a 78-75 score but the bout appeared to be closer than that. Truscott, who won the Commonwealth (British Empire) featherweight title in May with a decision over Osumanu Akaba, fought well in the first four rounds, but then began to take a lot of punishment from the harder-punching, more aggressive Miskirtchian and appeared to lose rounds five, six and seven.

In the eighth and final round, however, Truscott dug deep and outworked Miskirtchian, and hit him with some really nice uppercuts on the inside as well as some stinging hooks to the head. Truscott’s better movement was the telling factor in the final round as he chose not to stand directly in front of the shorter Miskirtchian like he had in the previous three rounds of the fight. However, despite getting the win, looked very beatable throughout, taking a lot of shots from a fighter with little power and one that he should have been able to beat handily given his perceived better boxing skills.

By Scott Gilfoid: Alex de Jesus (19-0, 13 KOs), a former 2004 Olympic representative for Puerto Rico, easily defeated Cuban Jose Antonio Izquierdo (17-4-1, 14 KOs) by an 8th round TKO on Saturday night at the Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot, in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. De Jesus, 25, knocked Izquierdo down three times in the fight, once in the 3rd, 6th and 8th, and after the final knockdown, the fight was stopped at 1:20 of the round by referee Ramon Pena. The fight perhaps should have been stopped in the 6th after Izquierdo got flatted by a big right hand at the end of the round, because he looked for the most part like he didn’t want to be there, as if he were frustrated and just going through the motions.

De Jesus, ranked # 6 in the WBO, looked good for a change, much better than he did in his last fight, a 12th round stoppage over Adrian Navarrete in August. In that fight, de Jesus fought in a listless, safety-first style for most of the fight, and was roundly booed by the Puerto Rican boxing fans in the Arena, who perhaps are more used to their stars engaging more and fighting with much more energy than de Jesus showed.