Derry Matthews

Derry Matthews

Liverpool’s Derry Matthews retained his WBU featherweight title with a unanimous points’ decision over John Simpson, in a tough and gruelling fight at the Liverpool Olympia this evening.

The fight will be remembered for a nasty cut that opened up on the top of Simpson’s head in round 6. Although the cut was on the top of the head, it became difficult for Simpson to see, and throughout the remaining rounds you could see it was effecting the challenger.

Coming to the ring Simpson was the outsider, although he came to the ring as the reigning British Champion. Hometown boy Matthew’s was a clear favourite and was expected to pick up a victory at ease.

All that changed when Matthews was caught with a big right hand in the first round and he touched the floor. Referee Micky Vann gave Matthews a standing eight count but the shot had seemed to shock Matthews rather than hurt him. But nevertheless it was a dream start for Simpson who couldn’t have imagined this in the build up.

Matthews came out in the second looking better, putting together good combo’s and looked as though the knockdown had woken him up. Nut in round 3 Matthews returned to his previous antics of leaving his chin open and was caught by Simpson again, Simpson came forward and took the round with a good flurry of body shots towards the end.

Matthews was warned in round four about holding and rabbit punches, but all in all it was a better round for Matthews, who began to catch Simpson more consistently than he did early on. He continued this in round five with good movement, and was working Simpson well, although not many of his punches were catching Simpson as Matthews would have liked.

The action in round 6 seemed to lift the crowd and got them going. Firstly there was the cut to Simpson’s head, which began to pour blood and looked a lot nastier than it was. But towards the end of the round Matthews was deducted a point for holding round the back of the head.

From this point on the cut became the prominent figure in the fight, and in round seven referee Vann called time out so the Doctor could look a t the cut. It appeared as though the doctor said one more round and it looked as though Simpson may be robbed of victory, due to a cut.

In rounds 8 and 9 Matthews was looking to catch his opponent on the cut to open it more, but when he held his opponent and hit the top of the head he was deducted another point. At this point it looked as though Simpson was heading for a points victory if he could make it through with the massive amount of blood he was losing.

Round 10 was a very messy round with nothing much happening apart from clinching. In round 11 Matthews moved back to boxing and worked his jab well, plus there was nothing much coming back from Simpson who looked as though he was in there hanging on to a points decision.

The final session was close and could have been scored either way, early work from Simpson was good and a late flurry from Matthews was also good.

At the end of the fight I had it dead even at 113-113, ITV’s commentators were split Duke McKenzie had Simpson winning by two whilst Barry McGuigan had it even. So when the scores were announced there was bemused faces all round. What fights Larry O’Connell and Dave Parris were watching I don’t know, but their scores of 118-112, 117-110 respectively didn’t reflect the fight we’d just seen. Is O’Connell saying that Matthews only dropped two points all night when he was deducted two, and lost one due to the knockdown in the first. I’m at a loss as to how these scores came about and there should be some sort of inquiry into this. The result was fair but the scores were degrading to the fight, to Simpson and to the fan’s who had watched these two fighters go at it for twelve gruelling rounds.

As I said it was very close, and you could argue the fight either way, and I don’t dispute the decision just the scores of the fights. Matthews looks a real talent and could go places with the backing of Warren and the fight fans in his native Liverpool. His record is now 18-0 (9). Simpson will take heart and recognition from the fight and still holds his British crown; he may look towards a rematch with Andy Morris or Matthews later in the year. His record has now moved to 14-5 (4).

Earlier in the evening French Light Welterweight Soulemayne M’Baye retained his WBA Light Welterweight title after a close draw with German based Ukrainian Andreas Kotelnik.

This was a close fight and really depended on which style you preferred, M’Baye’s counter punching on the back foot or Kotelnik’s come forward wear him down approach.

Both adopted these tactics from round one and many of the rounds were difficult to score either way. M’Baye moved round well, and caught his opponent when he needed to. Whilst Kotelnik looked like he had a tight defence whilst coming forward trying to catch M’Baye with his big hooks and overhand rights. Something he did a few times but never troubled M’Baye.

I made a not in the third round that the fight would be difficult to score and a lot of the early rounds I gave even, because it was that close.

The fight followed pretty much the same pattern throughout, and almost every round was hard to score, when you ahd to pick one style over the other.

From round seven onwards I thought M’Baye began to look tired, his bouncing style had gone and he’d adopted a more flat footed approach to his work, although his basic style stayed the same.

I gave M’Baye three of the last four rounds for his better workrate and effort, but Kotelnik may have thought he’d done enough to take these rounds. But for me, the challenger has to come and take the title away, and he just didn’t do that. I feel it’s also an approach taken by the judges, although Kotelnik did well, and was effective in his own style at the end of twelve I had the fight 116-114 in M’Baye’s favour.

The scores were met with jeers from the crowd as Michael Brass announced Paul Thomas had the fight 115-113 to M’Baye, Micky Vann somehow gave the fight 117-112 to Kotelnik and Terry O’Connor had the fight dead even at 114-114. The draw means that M’Baye keeps his title, but it was not a vintage performance from the man labelled “The Sensation” and I think if he and promoter Warren want a fight with either Witter or Hatton he has to take it up another level or two.

Dagenham’s Kevin Mitchell made the first defence of his Commonwealth Super Featherweight title against Harry Ramogoadi.

Mitchell looked in control from the start and in the six rounds of the fight didn’t drop a round. It was another good show from Mitchell who put power and venom into everything he did. It took him a while to get through Ramogoadi’s defence but a body shot at the end of the fourth seemed to take the wind out of the challenger’s sails.

Mitchell finished his opponent off in the sixth catching him with a good left right combo that sent his opponent reeling to the ground. Referee Terry O’Connor waved the fight off immediately, much to Ramogoadi’s protest, but in truth he was never in the fight and from the first bell it was a case of when Mitchell would finish it, not if Mitchell could finish it.

There’s now talk of Mitchell going for European and World honours in the next 18 months. If he’s to reach that level he needs to face tougher opponents than this. Mitchell is now unbeaten in 23 with 16 finishing early.

Local lad Paul Smith took longer than expected when he claimed the vacant WBU International Middleweight title by stopping Belgium’s Alex Pollizzi in 8 rounds.

Smith should have had his opponent out of there earlier and put him down twice in the second and again in the third. Somehow the man from Belgium regained his composure and made a fight of it, with Smith stopping him in the eighth round.

Smith is lined up to face Jonathon Reid at the Contender event in Newcastle at the end of the month, but he came out of the fight with some bruising around his left eye. It will need to recover if he’s to take part in the event on March 30th.