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The big slate of fights for May 7 is underway, with everything off and running in Manchester. Here's a look at what went down on the Sky Sports undercard beneath the Crolla-Barroso main event.
Shayne Singleton TKO-8 Adil Anwar
Anwar, who won a Prizefighter in 2012, came in 3-4 in his last seven, and also took this fight on two weeks' notice. But he gave Singleton some real trouble here. Singleton (23-1, 8 KO) scored a knockdown late in the first round, but Anwar (22-6, 8 KO) was able to settle the fight down, find range, keep the slower tempo he wanted, and he was about dead even with Singleton the rest of the way. I had the fight 66-66 after seven rounds, with Anwar ahead 4-3 in rounds, but Singleton dropped him again in the eighth, and finished off when Anwar got back up. A tougher fight than might have been expected, but Singleton gets the job done.
Martin Murray TKO-2 Cedric Spera
Easy work as expected. The first round saw Spera trying early, under pressure from Murray, who kept straying a little low with body shots, to Spera's understandable complaints. Spera also fell over when Murray pushed the back of his head, or at least had his hands on Spera's neck when Spera bent over. Spera was DQ hunting a little bit. So Murray ended that in the second round with a pair of knockdowns, the second of which ended the fight when the referee called it off. Murray goes on to face George Groves in a much more interesting fight on June 25.
Marcus Morrison KO-2 Jefferson Luiz
Morrison (11-0, 8 KO) is a good looking middleweight prospect from Manchester, so he wanted to look good at home, and he did. Luiz (16-2-2, 10 KO) built his record facing inexperienced, largely incompetent fighters at home in Brazil, and the difference in class was apparent here. Luiz went down late in the first round on a right uppercut and left hook, and early in the second, he was down again on a body shot, and he chose to take the 10 count without even an effort to get up. Which is fine -- he was overmatched, he did the job he was brought in to do (lose, quickly), and he did try in the first round before he got hurt. Morrison, 23, is a legit prospect, though -- he's trained by Joe Gallagher, and he certainly passes the eye test when you watch him work. We'll see what kind of ceiling he has going forward.