Chalk Up Another Quickie for the ‘Romford Bull’: Wipes Out Alen Babic in 36 Seconds

Among modern-day British boxers, no one developed a more passionate following than Ricky Hatton. But even Hatton didn’t make the turnstiles hum to the extent of Johnny Fisher after so few fights. Tonight, at East London’s Copper Box Arena, Fisher, a six-foot-four, 240-pound heavyweight, needed only 36 seconds to turn away Alen Babic who developed a nice cult following himself en route to winning his first 11 pro fights. The self-styled “Romford Bull,” who had a 24-pound weight advantage, knocked Babic to the canvas with a series of unanswered head shots and when Babic arose on unsteady legs, the ref waived it off.

It was the second scheduled 10-rounder for Fisher, 25, who improved to 12-0 (11 KOs).

It was inevitable that this fight would be over in a hurry as both fighters, but especially Babic, are sluggers.

As we noted in a previous story concerning the London-based Croatian, “Babic comes out swinging for the fences from the opening gong…He is as a subtle as a runaway freight train.”

After we wrote those words, Babic was exposed by Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski who knocked him out in the opening round in a match for the WBC’s new bridgerweight title. Babic subsequently scored a sixth-round stoppage of an opponent with a 6-2 record, elevating his record to 12-1 (11 KOs) preceding tonight’s 36-second blowout.

Johnny Fisher isn’t as highly regarded as Queensberry’s 19-year-old heavyweight prospect Moses Itauma who was unbeaten as an amateur and is currently 9-0 (7 KOs) as a pro. Fisher, who had only two amateur fights, is on the slow side akin to his former sparring partner and close friend Joe Joyce and his chin has never been tested, but the Romford Bull is a big ticket-seller and is going to make his promoter Eddie Hearn a lot of money before his career runs off the rails.

Co-Feature.

In a fight Marred by excessive clinching, Reese Bellotti successfully defended his British BBBofC 130-pound title with a unanimous decision over Levi Giles. It was the fifth straight win for the 33-year-old Bellotti (19-5) since he was stopped in three rounds by future world featherweight title-holder Raymond Ford. Giles falls to 15-2.

The Copper Box show, live-streamed on DAZN, bled into the preliminaries of DAZN’s coverage of a Golden Boy card in Ontario, California. Check back later for the full results of that show plus the Top Rank event in Newark, New Jersey.

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