TONY AYALA JR.: THE GLORY OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, THE HORROR OF WHAT WAS

Published

10 years ago

May 13, 2015

The news that former junior middleweight contender Tony Ayala Jr., 52, was found dead early Tuesday morning in San Antonio, Texas, shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the turbulent and troubled life of the onetime boy wonder who was known as “El Torito,” the Little Bull, when he was blasting his way to a 22-0 record with 19 knockouts and a No. 1 ranking from the WBA before his 19th birthday.

Perhaps the only stunner is that Ayala passed away so apparently peacefully, slumped over in the otherwise empty Zarzamora Street Gym where he had again been trying to dig out from the wreckage of a lifetime of abhorrent behavior and disastrous decisions, this time as a boxing trainer.

There are those who would have wagered heavily that Ayala’s end would have come violently or under suspicious circumstances, befitting someone who squandered his once-prodigious talent, and huge chunks of his time on earth, behind prison walls for crimes that even now that are chilling to polite society.

Thus are there two schools of thought that are invariably intertwined when recalling Ayala: one is the potential all-time great who might have been held in the same lofty esteem as contemporaries Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns; the other is an emotionally disturbed, heroin-addicted volcano always threatening to erupt. That Ayala went on drug binges and brutalized women whenever his inner demons could no longer be suppressed.

Of Ayala the fighter, his former manager, Lou Duva, once observed: “Forget Leonard, forget Hagler and, yeah, forget Mike Tyson. Rocky Marciano and Tony Ayala were the guys. Not even Muhammad Ali, great as he was, had it quite like those two.”

Dispute Duva’s take on Ayala the fighter if you must, but the prevailing viewpoint of the man outside of the ring is not in such glowing terms.

“I hope they prosecute him to the max in San Antonio,” Passaic County (N.J.) assistant district attorney Marilyn Zbodinski, who prosecuted Ayala for the 1983 rape convicted that landed him in prison for 16 years, said upon learning he had been arrested for a strikingly similar transgression in 2000. “He is a habitual, vicious criminal, and he’s not going to change.”

In many ways, the Tony Ayala Jr. story is reminiscent of another extremely gifted but tortured fighter, Johnny “Mi Vida Loca” Tapia, who was just 45 when his finally heart gave out on May 27, 2012. If there is a difference between them, it is that Tapia stayed out of trouble long enough to capture world championships at super flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight, and whose lengthiest period of inactivity was 3½ years. Ayala on the other hand, did not box for nearly 17 years, his first conviction forever erasing his already-agreed-upon title challenge of WBA 154-pound champ Davey Moore.

Were Ayala and Tapia victims of unfortunate circumstances that predisposed them to tragedy and heartbreak, directed at themselves as well as others? Were they deficient in some way that prevented them from rising above those circumstances? Or, especially in the case of Ayala, was he simply an inherently bad seed who pondered at length the forces that shaped his destiny?

For Tapia, the compelling reality of his life was the rape and murder of his mother, Virginia Tapia Gallegos, when Johnny was eight years old. The pain of her absence in his life drove him to dull the most jagged edges of his psyche with narcotics, and to take his anger out on opponents inside the ropes.

During his first incarceration, Ayala admitted to having been sexually abused as a boy by a male acquaintance of his family, something he was unable to speak about to his parents, Tony Sr. and Pauline, and then-wife Lisa for many years.

B. “I kept this from everybody, especially the people I care about,” Ayala told me during a two-hour interview session at Bayside State Prison in Cumberland County, N.J., in January 1998. “I kept it from my mother, my father, my wife. The first person who ever heard about it was my prison psychologist (Brian Raditz, who became Ayala’s manager upon his release).

“My drug use was more of an open secret. Other people knew about it. My dad didn’t. My dad is very ignorant about things like drugs and drug use. My dad never did anything like that in his life and he couldn’t imagine anyone he loved doing that either. He couldn’t detect the signs and the behavior that are associated with drugs.”

Not that Ayala’s personal failings or his heroin habit prevented him from battering his way toward the top of his profession.

“It became a situation where I had to prove myself constantly,” he said during the same interview. “Everything I did, including boxing, became about my machismo, my manhood, my ability to dominate and control my world and the people in it. It was about imposing my will on another person.

“It affected my sexuality as well. I felt a constant need to prove myself to be straight and strong and virile. There was this cycle that kept repeating itself. I’d fight and receive a great deal of praise. I was everybody’s favorite child. Then, within a short period of time, I would get arrested for being drunk, getting into a brawl, breaking into somebody’s house or whatever. Then I would fight again and the bad things would be more or less forgotten. Until I did them again, and I always did.”

The insanity came to a boil in the early-morning hours of Jan. 1, 1983, when a booze-fueled Ayala committed an act so heinous it could no longer be swept aside with by his boxing fame. No longer would he be everybody’s favorite child.

According to testimony presented at Ayala’s trial, a 30-year-old woman living in his apartment complex in West Paterson, N.J., was awakened by the sound of her bedroom doorknob turning. The door opened to reveal a man, a man she saw only by the light of a clock radio. The intruder produced a knife, tied her to the bed with her socks, blindfolded her, then had his way with her. In the next room, the woman’s 29-year-old roommate was awakened when a man entered her bedroom. He warned her that her roommate was tied up, and would be killed if she attempted to call the police. Minutes later, the roommate jumped out of her first-floor window and ran to a neighbor’s house, where she called the police. When the cops arrived at the apartment complex at 5:30 a.m., they found Ayala, clad only in blue jeans, wandering the grounds and smelling of alcohol. He claimed he was going to his car for cigarettes, but he fit the description of the assailant and was arrested.

At his trial, Ayala contended that the victim had invited him into her apartment and that they had engaged in consensual sex. The jury wasn’t buying it, and after deliberating for only 3½ hours, Ayala was found guilty on six charges: burglary, aggravated sexual assault, two counts of possession of a knife for an unlawful purpose, threatening to kill, and terroristic threats.

In noting Ayala’s history of violent behavior – at 15 he was placed on 10 years probation after pleading guilty to aggravated assault in the beating of an 18-year-old woman in the restroom of a San Antonio drive-in theater – the presiding judge sentenced him to a 15- to 35-year prison term, ordering that he serve at least 15 years without the possibility of parole. An appellate court later adjusted the sentence to 15 to 30 years.

B b“I can’t express how much regret that I allowed myself to get to a point where I had to commit this terrible crime to recognize what I was doing to myself,” said Ayala in admitting that his claim of consensual sex was a blatant falsehood. “I deserved to be punished for what I did. I am remorseful beyond words that I caused pain that person will have to carry for the rest of her life.

“But you know what? I don’t blame anyone or anything else for my circumstances. It was me. It’s not society’s fault. It isn’t mommy and daddy’s fault. It’s not because I’m Hispanic (of Mexican descent) and not white. It’s not because I’m misunderstood. That’s a crock of crap.”

Well-spoken and seemingly sincere, Ayala talked a good game, but he was denied early release on several occasions despite being what he termed a “model prisoner,” and one who even served as a counselor to fellow inmates. He served the full 15 years mandated by the presiding judge because, according to Andy Consovoy, then a member of the New Jersey Parole Board, the nature of his crimes indicated an especially high recidivism rate.

“John Douglas (an FBI profiler who was a consultant in the making of the Academy Award-winning “The Silence of the Lambs”) talks about something called `precipitating stress,’ Consovoy said. “Once Ayala (lost a fight), he was going to go off. There was no doubt.”

Having regained his freedom, Ayala vowed he would never again put himself in a situation that might again entrap him in a cage with iron bars.

V “I want to live a good, positive life, not just in boxing,” he said. “My life isn’t boxing. Boxing is only a small part of my life. After I fight two, three, four years, I fold that tent and go on with the rest of my life. I won’t lay down and die. I didn’t spend all those years in prison to get out and make a comeback. I prepared myself for life in its entirety, with all its problems and its choices. I want to make good choices from now on.”

For a time, Ayala’s impossible dream of rediscovered contention seemed, well, maybe not quite so impossible. He won five fights as a super middleweight, lost to Yori Boy Campas, then won four times more before Consovoy’s dire prediction came true, not long after the erstwhile “El Torito” was stopped in 11 rounds by Anthony Bosante on April 25, 2003. In 2014 he completed a 10-year prison sentence in Texas for burglary of a habitation.

But there was still a bit deeper toward rock-bottom that Ayala had to sink. His father, a trainer to world champions John Michael Johnson, Jesse Benavides, Gabby Canizales and Maribel Zurita and who pulled all four of his sons out of high school to concentrate on boxing, was 78 when he died of complications of diabetes on April 10, 2014. Even in Tony Jr.’s darkest hours, his dad had been the closest thing he had to an emotional anchor, and now that anchor line had been cut, leaving the son to drift away.

One wonders what might have happened had Ayala, during his first incarceration, cooperated with Sylvester Stallone on a movie project that would have taken an unstinting look at Ayala’s ruined life and career.

“He offered good money to do my story,” Ayala said in 1998. “But I didn’t want my story being told then because the movie would have had to end one way and one way only, with me in prison. It would have been a sad ending. I’d rather be forgotten than to have my story end that way.”

Now the story has its ending, and it’s still sad. All that remains is the speculation and conjecture as to what a focused and trouble-free Ayala might have accomplished in the ring. Ayala thought about that, and often, given all the years he had to contemplate the might-have-beens.

“Hagler, to me, was a great fighter, a great warrior,” he said of one of the dream matchups that never became reality. “I think me and him would have been one of the greatest fights in history. One of us would have gone down.

“Duran, I would have blown out. At any time in my career I would have knocked him out. Duran punked out and I still hold it against him. He punked out before `No Mas’ (his surrender in his second fight with Leonard), as far as I’m concerned. Duran’s place in history is undisputed, but if he had come into my territory, he would have been mine. I owned the junior middleweight division.

“To beat Leonard, I would have had to knock him out. I wouldn’t have won a decision because he was America’s poster boy. He was everything America tells blacks they can be. And he played the role good. He was a great fighter. Bu he was so popular, he won some fights he shouldn’t have won, against Hagler and the second one against Hearns.

“Tommy Hearns and I would never have fought. That was an agreement made between Emanuel Steward (Hearns’ manager-trainer) and my dad. Emanuel and my dad were real good friends from the amateur days. Anyway, Emanuel knows I would have taken Tommy apart.”

This is where any story about the death of a notable boxing figure is supposed to end with the expressed wish that he rests in peace. Here’s hoping that peace also extends to the victims of the uncontrollable rages that took Ayala down a road no one should ever have to travel.

Post Views: 3,901

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

Weekend Recap and More with the Accent of Heavyweights

Published

12 hours ago

April 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Weekend-Recap-and-More-with-Accents-on-Heavyweights

There were a lot of heavyweights in action across the globe this past weekend including six former Olympians. The big fellows added luster to a docket that was deep but included only one world title fight.

The bout that attracted the most eyeballs was the 10-rounder in Manchester between Filip Hrgovic and Joe Joyce. Hrgovic took the match on three weeks’ notice when Dillian Whyte suffered a hand injury in training and was forced to pull out.

Dillian Whyte is rugged but Joe Joyce’s promoter Frank Warren did Joe no favors by rushing Filip Hrgovic into the breach. The Croatian was arguably more skilled than Whyte and had far fewer miles on his odometer. Joyce, who needed a win badly after losing three of his previous four, would find himself in an underdog role.

This was a rematch of sorts. They had fought 12 years ago in London when both were amateurs and Joyce won a split decision in a 5-round fight. Back then, Joyce was 27 years old and Hrgovic only 20. Advantage Joyce. Twelve years later, the age gap favored the Croatian.

In his first fight with California trainer Abel Sanchez in his corner, Hrgovic had more fuel in his tank as the match wended into the late rounds and earned a unanimous decision (98-92, 97-93, 96-95), advancing his record to 18-1 (14).

It wasn’t long ago that Joe Joyce was in tall cotton. He was undefeated (15-0, 14 KOs) after stopping Joseph Parker and his resume included a stoppage of the supposedly indestructible Daniel Dubois. But since those days, things have gone haywire for the “Juggernaut.” His loss this past Saturday to Hrgovic was his fourth in his last five starts. He battled Derek Chisora on nearly even terms after getting blasted out twice by Zhilei Zhang but his match with Chisora gave further evidence that his punching resistance had deteriorated.

Joe Joyce will be 40 years old in September. He should heed the calls for him to retire. “One thing about boxing, you get to a certain age and this stuff can catch up with you,” says Frank Warren. But in his post-fight press conference, Joyce indicated that he wasn’t done yet. If history is any guide, he will be fed a soft touch or two and then be a steppingstone for one of the sport’s young guns.

The newest member of the young guns fraternity of heavyweights is Delicious Orie (yes, “Delicious” is his real name) who made his pro debut on the Joyce-Hrgovic undercard. Born in Moscow, the son of a Nigerian father and a Russian mother, Orie, 27, earned a college degree in economics before bringing home the gold medal as a super heavyweight at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He was bounced out of the Paris Olympics in the opening round, out-pointed by an Armenian that he had previously beaten.

Orie, who stands six-foot-six, has the physical dimensions of a modern-era heavyweight. His pro debut wasn’t memorable, but he won all four rounds over the Bosnian slug he was pitted against.

Las Vegas

The fight in Las Vegas between former Olympians Richard Torrez Jr and Guido Vianello was a true crossroads fight for Torrez who had an opportunity to cement his status as the best of the current crop of U.S.-born heavyweights (a mantle he inherited by default after aging Deontay Wilder was knocked out by Zhilei Zhang following a lackluster performance against Joseph Parker and Jared Anderson turned in a listless performance against a mediocrity from Europe after getting bombed out by Martin Bakole).

Torrez, fighting in his first 10-rounder after winning all 12 of his previous fights inside the distance, out-worked Vianello to win a comfortable decision (97-92 and 98-91 twice).

Although styles make fights, it’s doubtful that Torrez will ever turn in a listless performance. Against Vianello, noted the prominent boxing writer Jake Donovan, he fought with a great sense of urgency. But his fan-friendly, come-forward style masks some obvious shortcomings. At six-foot two, he’s relatively short by today’s standards and will be hard-pressed to defeat a top-shelf opponent who is both bigger and more fluid.

Astana, Kazakhstan

Torrez’s shortcomings were exposed in his two amateur fights with six-foot-seven southpaw Bakhodir Jalolov. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, the Big Uzbek was in action this past Saturday on the undercard of Janibek Alimkhanuly’s homecoming fight with an obscure French-Congolese boxer with the impossible name of Anauel Ngamissengue. (Alimkhanuly successfully defended his IBF and WBO middleweight tiles with a fifth-round stoppage).

Jalolov (15-0, 14 KOs) was extended the distance for the first time in his career by Ukrainian butterball Ihor Shevadzutski who was knocked out in the third round by Martin Bakole in 2023. Jalolov won a lopsided decision (100-89. 97-92, 97-93), but it did not reflect well on him that he had his opponent on the canvas in the third frame but wasn’t able to capitalize.

At age 30, Jalolov is a pup by current heavyweight standards, but one wonders how he will perform against a solid pro after being fed nothing but softies throughout his pro career.

Hughie Fury

Hughie Fury, Tyson’s cousin, has been gradually working his way back into contention after missing all of 2022 and 2023 with injuries and health issues. Early in his career he went 12 in losing efforts with Joeph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, and Alexander Povetkin, but none of his last four bouts were slated for more than eight rounds.

His match this past Friday at London’s venerable York Hall with 39-year-old countryman Dan Garber was a 6-rounder. Fury reportedly entered the fight with a broken right hand, but didn’t need more than his left to defeat Garber (9-4 heading in) who was dismissed in the fifth round with a body punch. In the process, Fury settled an old family score. Their uncles had fought in 1995. It proved to be the last pro fight for John Fury (Tyson’s dad) who was defeated by Dan’s uncle Steve.

Negotiations are reportedly under way for a fight this summer in Galway, Ireland, between Hughie Fury and Dillian Whyte.

Looking Ahead

The next big heavyweight skirmish comes on May 4 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Efe Ajagba and Martin Bakole tangle underneath Canelo Alvarez’s middleweight title defense against William Scull.

Ajagba has won five straight since losing to Frank Sanchez, most recently winning a split decision over Guido Vianello. Bakole, whose signature win was a blast-out of Jared Anderson, was knocked out in two rounds by Joseph Parker at Riyadh in his last outing, but there were extenuating circumstances. A last-minute replacement for Daniel Dubois, Bakole did not have the benefit of a training camp and wasn’t in fighting shape,

At last glance, the Scottish-Congolese campaigner Bakole was a 9/2 (minus-450) favorite, a price that seems destined to come down.

On June 7, Fabio Wardley (18-0-1, 17 KOs) steps up in class to oppose Jarrell Miller (26-1-2) at the soccer stadium in Wardley’s hometown of Ipswich. In his last start in October of last year, Wardley scored a brutal first-round knockout of Frazer Clarke. This was a rematch. In their first meeting earlier that year, they fought a torrid 10-round draw, a match named the British Fight of the Tear by British boxing writers.

Miller last fought in August of last year in Los Angeles, opposing Andy Ruiz. Most in attendance thought that Miller nicked that fight, but the match was ruled a draw. For that contest, Miller was a svelte 305 ½ pounds.

Wardley vs. Miller is being framed as a WBA eliminator. Wardley, fighting on his home turf, opened an 11/5 (minus-220) favorite.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 496

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Results and Recaps from Las Vegas where Richard Torrez Jr Mauled Guido Vianello

Published

2 days ago

April 6, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Results-and-Recaps-from-Las-Vegas-where-Richard-Torrez-Jr-Mauled-Guido-Vianello

LAS VEGAS, NV – In an inelegant but wildly entertaining rumble, Richard Torrez Jr, bullied his way past Guido Vianello. The 10-round heavyweight contest, an appealing match-up between former Olympians, was the featured attraction on a Top Card at the Pearl Theater at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

Torrez, the pride of Tulare, California and a 5/2 favorite, promised to show more dimensions to his game, but was the same old frenetic bull-rusher. Torrez likes to dig inside and smother the punches of his opponent who is invariably taller. His chief asset is an engine that never quits.

The early rounds were marred by a lot of wrestling. Referee Tom Taylor, who had a difficult assignment, took a point away from Vianello for holding in round two, a controversial call although it proved to be a moot point.

Vianello, who was coming off an eighth-round stoppage of Russian-Canadian behemoth Arslanbek Makhmudov, wasn’t able to build on that victory and declined to 13-3-1 (11). Torrez, competing in his first scheduled 10-rounder, won by scores of 97-92 and 98-91 twice, improving to 13-0 (11).

Co-Feature

In a tactical fight (translation: no fireworks) Lindolfo Delgado remained undefeated with a 10-round majority decision over Elvis Rodriguez. The scores were 95-95 and 96-94 twice.

Delgado, a 2016 Olympian for Mexico, won over the judges by keeping Rodriguez on his back foot for most of the fight. However, Rodriguez won the most lopsided round of the bout, the ninth, when he hurt the Mexican with a punch that sent him staggering into the ropes.

Delgado, a 3/2 favorite, improved to 23-0 (17). It was the second pro loss for Rodriguez (17-2-1), a 29-year-old Dominican who trains in Los Angeles under Freddie Roach.

Abdullah Mason

Cleveland southpaw Abdullah Mason celebrated his 21^st birthday by winning his first scheduled 10-rounder. Mason (18-0, 16 KOs) scored three knockdowns before the fight was waived off after the sixth frame.

Mason’s opponent, Mexican southpaw Carlos Ornelas (28-5), fought a curious fight. He wasn’t knocked down three times, not exactly; he merely thought it prudent to take a knee and after each occasion he did his best work, if only for a few brief moments.

Ornelas, a late sub for Giovanni Cabrera who had to pull out with an eye injury, was clearly buzzed after the third “knockdown.” The doctor examined him after the sixth round and when Ornelas left his corner with an unsteady gait, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough.

Other Bouts

Featherweight Albert “Chop Chop” Gonzalez, a protégé of Robert Garcia, improved to 14-0 (7) with an 8-round unanimous decision over Australia’s durable but limited Dana Coolwell. The judges had it 80-72, 78-74, and 77-75.

The granite-chinned Coolwell (13-4) was making his second start in a U.S. ring after taking Shu Shu Carrington the distance in an 8-rounder underneath the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson exhibition at the stadium of the Dallas Cowboys.

SoCal bantamweight Steven Navarro, the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year, stepped up in class and scored a fourth-round stoppage of Mexicali’s Juan Esteban Garcia who was winning the fourth round when Navarro (6-0, 5 KOs) reversed the momentum with a flourish, forcing the stoppage at the 2:46 mark.

Junior middleweight Art Barrera Jr (8-0, 6 KOs) polished off Daijon Gonzalez in the second round. Barrera decked Gonzalez with a hard left hook and when Gonzales got to his feet, he was immediately greeted with another devastating punch which forced the referee to intervene. The official time was 2:56 of round two. A 32-year-old campaigner from Davenport, Iowa, Gonzalez brought a 12-5 record but had scored only one win vs. an opponent with a winning record.

Jahi Tucker, a 22-year-old middleweight from Deer Park, Long Island, scores his best win to date, winning a lopsided decision over former British junior middleweight champion Troy Williamson. The scores were 99-89 across the board.

Tucker (14-1-1) scored two knockdowns. The first in the second round was called a slip but overruled on replay. The second, in round eight, was the result of a left hook. Williamson stayed on his feet but the ropes held him up and it was properly scored a knockdown. The Englishman, 34, fell to 20-4-1 in what was his U.S. debut.

In a junior lightweight bour slated for eight rounds, 21-year-old Las Vegas southpaw DJ Zamora, advanced to 16-0 (11 KOs) with a fourth-round stoppage of Tex-Mex campaigner Hugo Alberto Castaneda (15-2-1). The official time was 1:24 of round four.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 1,158

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Filip Hrgovic Defeats Joe Joyce in Manchester

Published

2 days ago

April 5, 2025

David A. Avila

Filip-Hrgovic-Fefeats-Joe-Joe-Joyce-in-Manchester

In a battle to retain heavyweight contender status, Filip Hrgovic out-fought Joe “The Juggernaut” Joyce to win by unanimous decision on Saturday on Queensberry Promotions’ first card on DAZN.

It was a heavyweight brawl.

Croatia’s Hrgovic (18-1, 14 KOs) was the more accurate puncher over England’s Joyce (16-4, 15 KOs) in their heavyweight title fight at Manchester, England. Both were coming off losses.

Hrgovic, 32, entered the boxing ring as a replacement for Joyce’s original foe Dillian Whyte. Though short on notice, he worked with Abel Sanchez who formerly trained Joyce. It proved to be a wise move.

From the opening round Hrgovic opened-up with a battering attack, especially with the one-two combination that rocked Joyce repeatedly in the first two rounds. The British fighter known for his rock-hard chin, withstood the challenge.

“He is a beast,” said Hrgovic. “This guy is like steel.”

For the first half of the 10-round heavyweight clash, Hrgovic was the aggressor and the much more accurate puncher. Joyce seemed unsteady on his legs but every round he seemed to gain more stability and confidence.

By midway, Joyce resorted to his juggernaut ways and began to stalk the Croatian fighter whom he defeated in the amateurs a dozen years ago.

Though Joyce had lost by knockout to Zhilei Zhang and was knocked down by Derek Chisora, he was able to remain upright throughout the match with Hrgovic despite some wicked shots.

Just when it seemed Joyce might take over the fight, Hrgovic opened-up with an eight-punch volley in the eighth round that had the British heavyweight reeling. The fight turned around.

Hrgovic seemed to get a second wind and began connecting with left hooks and pinpoint accurate combinations. Joyce tried to fight back but his accuracy was off. The Croatian fighter regained the momentum and never allowed Joyce back in the fight.

After 10 rounds all three judges scored for Hrgovic 97-93, 96-95, 98-92.

“I came to fight on short notice. Thanks to God he gave me strength,” said Hrgovic. “Thanks to Joe for the opportunity.”

The Croatian fighter said he seeks a fight with IBF heavyweight titlist Daniel Dubois.

“This guy beat Dubois and I beat him,” said Hrgovic who lost to Dubois a year ago but defeated Joyce who knocked out Dubois when they fought.

Other Bouts

Heavyweight David Adeleye (14-1, 13 KOs) knocked out Jeamie Tshikeva (8-2, 5 KOs) during a clinch and interference by the referee. It remained a knockout win for Adeleye at 55 seconds of the sixth round. Adeleye becomes the British heavyweight champion.

Super lightweight Jack Rafferty (26-0, 17 KOs) knocked out Cory O’Regan (14-1, 3 KOs) in a punch seemingly delivered during a clinch in the fifth round. The match was stopped at 2:26 of the sixth round.

British Olympian Delicious Orie (1-0) made his pro debut and won by decision over Milos Veletic (3-8) in a heavyweight contest.

Post Views: 1,072

Share The Sweet Science experience!