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Top heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois faced no resistance in his fourth fight of 2019, dropping Ebenezer Tetteh twice in the opening round and forcing a stoppage to improve to 13-0 (12 KO).
Dubois, 21, came in holding the British heavyweight title, and added the Commonwealth belt and a minor WBO strap to his collection with this win, which came at 2:10 of the first round.
If we’re being completely honest here — and this is not a shot at Dubois, a legitimate and exciting heavyweight prospect — Tetteh looked entirely like someone who had no business in the ring at this level. The 31-year-old Ghanaian had never fought outside of an Accra ring before, starting his career as a light heavyweight seven years ago, and just moving up to heavyweight a little over a year ago.
Tetteh (19-1, 16 KO) came in with a record that looked good on paper, in terms of being undefeated, anyway, but had never fought anyone, and compared to Dubois barely resembled a professional fighter at all.
The win tells us nothing we didn’t already know about Dubois, but it’s a win all the same, and he’ll move forward. He’s really young for the division, but his star is rising fast in the United Kingdom — Royal Albert Hall looked pretty filled-in for this fight, and he’s got buzz on both sides of the pond with diehard fans at the very least.
As for what’s next, I wouldn’t be surprised to see David Price, coming off of a win over Dave Allen, look to take a crack at Dubois and his belts. There aren’t really any serious domestic challengers easily available for Dubois otherwise, and he could find himself in the sort of tough spot where he’s too good to get much out of “safer” choices, but arguably not quite ready for the proven contenders above him.
Archie Sharp KO-4 Declan Geraghty
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Earlier this year, Geraghty faced Marco McCullough in Belfast, and the fight was going well for him for two rounds before he got blasted by McCullough and stopped in the third. Here, he was doing well for three rounds, then got absolutely drilled by a left hook on the button from Sharp (17-0, 9 KO), and he was out. Dublin’s Geraghty (19-5, 4 KO) is a boxer with some skill, but a leaky defense and, obviously, not the best chin, which is a bad combination. It’s a decent win for the 24-year-old Sharp, a rising potential contender at 130, but he’s still a ways off from the world level.
Nicola Adams D-10 Marina Salinas
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Adams (5-0-1, 3 KO) retains her WBO flyweight title with a draw against the scrappy Salinas (21-7-4, 7 KO), who came over from Mexico and clearly felt she got jobbed on away soil here. Adams, 36, won one card on a score of 97-93, while Salinas, 30, took one 96-94, and the third was even, 95-95. You could probably make a fair enough case that either one of them did enough, depending on the work you preferred, and the draw ultimately seems fair enough. Adams won gold at London 2012 and Rio 2016, but she’s also getting older and is past her real best day sin the ring, and it’s showing in the pros. Salinas came in here a live dog, really, having given Arely Mucino a really tough fight last September in Monterrey, losing a split decision.
Sam Noakes RTD-3 Chris Adaway
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Noakes, a lightweight, was making his pro debut here, and he was pretty sharp, smacking the veteran Adaway (9-60-4, 1 KO) around a bit in the third, with the 26-year-old Adaway suffering a cut, which caused he and his corner to pull the plug after the third. It makes sense — Adaway, who is a likable journeyman and a familiar face on UK cards, wasn’t going to win, and making the cut worse just meant more time out of the ring for him, and he likes to stay active in these fights. This was his third fight in September and his 12th of the year, the most memorable of which saw him upset Tom Ansell on Mar. 23 at Copper Box on the Edwards-Moreno card. Adaway will get healed up and come back for more of these paydays, and Noakes will go become whatever he’s going to become in boxing.
Denzel Bentley TKO-1 Kelcie Ball
Ball came in with a decent record on paper, but Bentley just totally overwhelmed him with power shots and put him away in 1:12 when the referee stepped in, as Ball (10-2, 2 KO) was being rocked around. Bentley (11-0, 9 KO) is developing a nice reputation as an aggressive banger, and the 24-year-old middleweight might be someone to watch. He has gone a six-round distance twice against tough journeyman types, so it’s not that he can’t fight more than two rounds, he just usually doesn’t.
Dennis McCann TKO-2 Georgi Georgiev
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McCann is an 18-year-old bantamweight prospect that Queensberry Promotions are very high on, improves to 4-0 (3 KO) with this win, where he dropped Georgiev (8-16-1, 5 KO) three times and forced the referee to step in late in the second. The hype behind McCann is a lot of comparisons to Naseem Hamed, which, y’know, probably not the greatest thing to fill a kid’s head with, but what do I care, I guess? I’m not the one putting money behind him.
Willy Hutchinson TKO-2 Borislav Zankov
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Missed this one with some technical issues, came in just as it ended, but wanted to make note of Hutchinson, a 21-year-old light heavyweight prospect, improving to 10-0 (7 KO) with a quick win over Bulgarian journeyman Zankov (11-27-1, 4 KO).