By Aaron Klein: In a night of poor performances by British fighters, undefeated top ranked super featherweight contender Kevin Mitchell (27-0, 20 KOs) had a tough time in getting by the Colombian journeyman Walter Estrada (34-6, 23 KOs), taking a lot of punishment from him before dispatching him in the 5th round with a right to the body on Saturday night at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Mitchell, 23, ranked #3 WBO, #4 in the IBF super featherweight division, was thought to have been able to get by a grizzled old veteran like Estrada with relative ease.
That wasn’t the case, however, as Estrada, 33, took the fight to Mitchell in the opening rounds hurting him with tremendous left hands. Estrada, a featherweight, showed that he was the much harder puncher of the two during the early action and had little trouble landing his straight left through the wide open guard of Mitchell. After the second round, in which Estrada stunned Mitchell on a number of occasions with straight left hands, Mitchell came on in the following rounds and took control of the fight with his hard shots to the body and much better work rate.
Super featherweight contender Kevin Mitchell (26-0, 19 KOs) was forced to dig deep in rallying after being hurt in the sixth to eventually come back and stop Carl Johanneson (27-4, 19 KOs) in the 9th round to win the BBBofC British super featherweight title on Saturday night at the O2 Arena (Millenium Dome), in Greenwich, London. Mitchell, 23, took tremendous shots all fight long, particularly from rounds six though eight, in which Johanneson unloaded with devastating left hooks and straight right hands. Johanneson appeared to be on his way to winning the fight though eight rounds, but in the ninth he suddenly slowed way down and began to look very tired.