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Wayne Elcock held his long awaited coming out party at the Skydome Arena in Coventry, England on Friday night as the Birmingham middleweight outboxed the highly decorated Howard Eastman in an entertaining scrap to annex the British title.
Elcock came into the clash as the clear underdog, having failed in a previous British title bid against Scott Dann and been the victim of a nearly career shattering first round KO in 2003 to Lawrence Murphy.
By contrast, Eastman had won the European, British and Commonwealth titles each on more than one occasion and had participated in unsuccessful but competitive world title bids against Bernard Hopkins and William Joppy.
Although Eastman had dropped three straight to such top level international competition as Hopkins, Arthur Abraham and Edison Miranda over the course of 2005-2006, the “Battersea Bomber” had shown that he was still a force to be reckoned with by a bruising KO win for the British title over former IBO Light Middle boss Richard Williams and a good decision win over Evans Ashira for the Commonwealth crown.
But once the bell rang, the edge in experience that Eastman held counted for little as Elcock was obviously the fresher, younger and more motivated fighter.
The shorter Elcock got inside the long arms of Eastman and rattled the champion with effective hooks to both the head and body. A notorious slow starter, Eastman was caught flat-footed in the early rounds and missed with most of his efforts.
Eastman warmed up by the third and found range from the outside, taking away Elcock’s early confidence with the same booming right hands that had won so many title fights.
The Londoner looked to improve upon his work and pressured Elcock but it was the challenger who regained the upper hand with whipping counters that the slower Eastman was unable to stop.
Eastman was back in the driver’s seat by the sixth, mounting a high pressure body assault that Elcock had difficulty coming to grips with. But the expended effort took it’s toll on the 36 year old Eastman and Elcock once again was catching the fading champion with rattling counter shots by the eighth.
Elcock proved to have the better stamina and bossed Eastman the rest of the way through the contest, keeping the more experienced fighter out of the bout with withering single shots to both the head and body.
The challenger nearly ended matters in the twelfth and final round with a perfectly timed uppercut but Eastman held on to finish the fight.
Elcock was declared the new British Middleweight Champion via scores of 116-113, 115-113 and 115-114, improving his record to a 18-2 (8) mark.
Eastman drops to 42-5 (35) and faces an uncertain future.
