Who’s Fooling Who? – Review
- britishboxingblog
- Nov 8, 2015
- 4 min read
After a great night of boxing in Liverpool, British Boxing Blog has a look at the standouts of the show and see where the boxers can go next.
Performance of the night – While there were many impressive wins throughout the card there is only one winner for this. Callum Smith’s first round demolition of Rocky Fielding in the main event was as impressive as it was sensational. I felt that, despite both men’s power, this one would go into the latter rounds and possibly even the distance. How wrong I was! Smith showed tremendous poise and accuracy to go along with his heavy hands. After three hard knockdowns the fight was officially waved off at 2:45 of the opening round. Fielding showed guts getting up each time, especially after the first knockdown where he tried to fire back, but “Mundo” was too sharp, too quick and too devastating. Smith moves to 18-0 (13 inside the distance) while Fielding drops to 21-1.
Where next? – Callum Smith proved his class and looked tremendous. As well as winning the British title, and becoming the fourth of his brothers to do so, Smith also retained his number one ranking with the WBC. George Groves has been mentioned as a potential opponent and while that makes a certain amount of sense, I’d feel confident throwing him in against any of the world champions in 2016. I believe we will see Smith in some form of final eliminator next, as Matchroom look to manoeuvre him into a mandatory title shot as they tend to do. Fielding is in a difficult position as he looks to regroup. He is unlucky that he is currently in a division where there are a lot of top level domestic fighters. Smith will probably vacate the British title so that could be a reasonable goal, however he mentioned in the aftermath that he doesn’t want to go backwards and still feels he can compete against big name opponents.
Fight of the night – Another fairly easy decision. We previewed Cardle vs Dodd earlier in the week and noted that you can never write off the challenger. And this time he did not disappoint. While Cardle may regret his apparent willingness to go toe to toe, Dodd deserves full credit for dragging him into an all-out war. Both men gave their all and were badly cut by the end. As they entered the twelfth round, home favourite Dodd was ahead on two of the judges’ scorecards. This set the scene for a dramatic ending. With only 5 stoppages on his record I didn’t feel Cardle would score the knockout he needed but both men threw everything into the final three minutes. The effort that had gone into the previous rounds began show as Dodd tired and Cardle began to land clean, hard shots, eventually forcing the knockdown. In the referee’s (flimsy) defence it was a very heavy fall into the ropes. However I have no idea why he didn’t then administer a count. He looked to me to have waved it off before “Masher” had even tried to stand up. I feel that it would probably have been waved off anyway as Dodd looked unsteady and little left to give. But he should have been given the opportunity to show that.
Where next? – Only one answere here. Both boxers, and Eddie Hearn, unanimously agreed that they would like to see a rematch. And so would we. Doubts will persist over whether Sean Dodd can repeat this level of performance. Although we suggested that may have been the case for this bout and were proved wrong. As Cardle received several cuts it will probably be a while before he is back in the ring. As soon as he is we can safely assumed “Masher” will be waiting in the opposite corner. This could well be a welcome addition to the Quigg Frampton undercard.
Undercard highlights – Recent Prizefighter winner Tom Doran won his British title eliminator against Rod Smith comprehensively with a quality body shot in the third round. However he failed to make weight for this middleweight clash so whether he goes on to compete for the Lonsdale belt is very much up in the air.
Sunderland Cruiserweight hope Warren Baister made his professional debut in great style with a first round stoppage over Attila Gyen. We have genuinely high hopes that former Team GB star can become a star in the North East and we will look to do a more comprehensive feature on him before his next outing. He is due to fight on the 20th November at Rainton Meadows Arena on the undercard of Dickens vs Ward.
Another prospect to end his night early was Jake “The Blade” Ball. Fighting under the tutelage of Jim McDonnell, Ball picked apart winless Mehdi Lacombe, who failed to show for the third round having been dropped in the previous session. “The Blade” moves onto 3-0 with three stoppages to his name. He has recently said that he wants to stay as active as possible to progress within the paid ranks.
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