Ringside Boxing Report: Nasser Al Harbi vs. Davey Jones
© Jane Warburton / Saddo Boxing
On Friday night at the Holiday Inn, Smallbrook Queensway in Birmingham, England promoter Jon Pegg hosted a Boxing dinner show which showcased four contests with boxers hailing from Richie Woodall‘s gym.
The Albany Suite was full with tables of attendees – happily tucking in to a three course meal before bidding on memorabilia at the pre-fight auction. Attendees included newly crowned Commonwealth Super Flyweight Champion Don Broadhurst and ‘Black Country Body Snatcher’, Darren ‘Macca’ McDermott.
The first fight of the night saw Birmingham’s Nasser Al Harbi face Davey Jones of Scunthorpe. Aged just 19, Al Harbi had won all four of his previous contests and now faced more experienced Jones.
Not a great fight to watch, as there was a lot of holding from the younger Al Harbi. Jones slips in the first round but fighting quickly resumes with Al Harbi throwing both right and left straights.
Al Harbi holds down Jones as the bell ends round four then Jones lands a body-punch after the bell, which resulted in a stern warning from referee Shaun Messer and both men are told to ‘clean it up’ in the fifth round.
Al Harbi wins on points 60-56 and improves to 5-0.
Second up was middleweight Alex Strutt, aka ‘Sledgehammer’, of Ombersley as he faced Polish-born Pawel Trebinski of Tooting, London.
There was big support for Strutt as the crowd chanted ‘Strutty, Strutty’. Trebinski sustained a small cut to the bridge of his nose during round three and – with a long reach – Strutt landed with both right and left straight punches.
But despite catching the Polish man with a couple of solid punches in round four – Strutt had a tough opponent in Trebinski and the result was a draw. Strutt’s record now stands at 2-1-1 while Trebinski goes to 1-3-1.
Another popular boxer – Mark Regen – enjoyed big support from the crowd. Southpaw Regen of Birmingham faced Barnsley boxer Rob Burton in a six round cruiserweight contest.
“There’s only one Mark Regenâ€, the crowd sing as they start round one. Burton throws some big swinging overarm lefts but has to cover up tight against the left hooks to face and body from Regen. The crowd is noisy and are on their feet to cheer on Regen.
Burton goes down in round two and after another hook from the Birmingham boxer, blood splashes on to the canvas from Burton’s cut mouth in round three.
By round five, Burton is still bleeding from the mouth and now has a bloody left eye. Referee Messer jumps in to check on Burton’s eye and stops the contest. Mark Regen wins by TKO round five to notch up his second win.
The last fight of the evening was the super middleweight contest between crowd-pleaser Eddie ‘One Time’ McIntosh of Birmingham and experienced Mark Phillips of St.Clears, Wales.
McIntosh clearly likes the crowd attention and grinned through most of the contest! Round two was scrappy with both men being spun round and McIntosh spends some time ‘running away’ from Phillips around the ring!
Fighting carried on after the bell at the end of round three. Round four sees both men landing with left and right hooks.
Phillips put up a good fight against McIntosh, but the Birmingham man secured a 40-36 points win to gain his seventh straight win, 1 by knockout.