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Super flyweight prospect Jamie Conlan overcame a bit of a tough start with Mexican Jose Estrella, winning an unanimous decision in an entertaining action fight. Scores were 97-93, 97-93, and 99-92 for Conlan. Bad Left Hook had it 96-94 for Conlan, after splitting the first six rounds, 3-3, and giving Estrella the final round, too.
Conlan (13-0, 8 KO) has some future, but it's unclear how high he can climb. Super flyweight gets dramatically better when stepping from the relatively empty domestic scene in the United Kingdom, or even the European scene, and into the deeper waters against better fighters from Latin America and Asia, particularly. But this was a good, tough fight, and one where he can learn some things. Estrella drops to 14-6-1 (10 KO).
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Middleweight Eamonn O'Kane was knocked down and in a bad way in round one against Lithuanian visitor Vigilijus Stapulionis, but referee Marcus McDonnell helped the home fighter out by giving him breaks whenever he could, including multiple checks on a cut that didn't seem particularly bad or like it was really bothering Stapulionis.
The first hilarity was McDonnell taking a point away from Stapulionis in round two, as his corner illegally used Vaseline, apparently, which is the first time I've ever heard of that, and the first time BoxNation's Steve Bunce -- who's been around a lot longer and seen a lot more than I have -- has heard of it, too, apparently.
At that point, it became obvious that O'Kane was going to get out of here without a loss unless he was knocked flat out, but he did a good enough job staying away from Stapulionis, and Stapulionis did himself no favors by smothering his own attempts at finishing. Eventually, in round four, with just 13 seconds left in the round, McDonnell found that the cut had grown too dangerous, and the fight was stopped as a technical draw. It was pretty ridiculous, but Stapulionis is a 28-year-old nobody from Lithuania, so nobody will really care much.
Stapulionis is now 23-3-1 (16 KO), while O'Kane goes to 12-1-1 (4 KO).
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Marco McCullough dominated an old and undersized Dmitriy Kirilov, moving to 10-1 (6 KO) when the fight was stopped after round eight when Kirilov retired from the fight, having been pretty thoroughly dominated and bullied by a bigger, younger man.
Kirilov, 35, is a former super flyweight now campaigning rather aimlessly as a featherweight and super featherweight, and is simply far too small for the division(s). The commentators noted he didn't seem to have much power at this weight, but in all honesty, he never had power at any weight, so that was no surprise.