Click below for full MSG undercard report
Giovanni Lorenzo TKO2 Robert Kamya... Dominican middleweight Giovanni Lorenzo raised his record to 23-0 and earned himself a possible September date with Duddy by scoring a one-sided TKO over Ugandan veteran Robert Kamya.
Lorenzo, who made his pitch for support from the predominantly Irish audience by fighting with a large green shamrock tattooed (temporarily, we presume) across his back, wasted little time, decking Kamya with a left hook in the first round.
After an uneventful second, Lorenzo floored his opponent twice in the third, first with a chopping right that caught Kamya on the top of the head, and the second time by landing two successive rights. Although Kamya (now 15-7) made it to his feet, referee Benji Estevez waved it off at 2:38 of the round. “I felt good, but it wasn’t what I wanted,” said Lorenzo of his brief night’s work. “On a scale of one to ten I’d rate this one about a seven.”
Asked whom he might fight next, Lorenzo replied “it’s up to my managers, but I hear they’ve been talking to Duddy’s people.” Lorenzo may be ready for Duddy. The question is, or ought to be, is Duddy ready for Lorenzo?
Not quite yet, at least according to Irish Ropes’ McLoughlin, who said Duddy’s next outing would be a nationally-televised (probably ESPN) date in June or thereabouts, either in New York, Boston, or one of the Connecticut casinos. If all goes well, the next step might be a co-featured spot on a September HBO card, very possibly against Lorenzo.
“Hopefully we’ll be fighting Jermain Taylor by this time next year,” added McLoughlin, and at least a dozen scribes of the Irish persuasion nodded dutifully as if to say “of course!”
That’s what Eddie said, anyway, but off what he has showed in his last two outings, you’d have to say that Duddy is nowhere near ready to fight Taylor now, and he may not be a year from now either. Moreover, from Irish Ropes’ standpoint, throwing Duddy into a world title fight might not even make sense.
If Duddy can continue playing to sellout houses against less threatening opponents, why chance killing the off the goose that lays golden eggs?
Andy Lee KO3 Carl Daniels... Another Irish middleweight, Limerick’s Andy Lee scored a sensational one-punch knockout of former WBA junior middle champion Carl Daniels, nailing The Squirrel with a picture-perfect right hook that knocked the usually durable veteran cold. The KO, which came at 2:36 of the third, raised Lee’s record to 8-0. Daniels, who took the fight on three days’ notice, is 40-11-1.
“He was crafty,” said Lee of his fellow southpaw. “I was touching him with my jab over the first couple of rounds, and he was picking it off with his left glove right in front of his face. So this time I showed the jab and brought the hook around his glove. The punch caught him flush. I knew the second I hit him he wasn’t going to get up.”
As the blow thudded off his head, Daniels wobbled for a minute and then toppled over backward. Lee had sprinted across the ring and climbed the ring rope in his corner in celebration before Esteves even picked up the count – which he almost immediately abandoned. It was that clear that Carl Daniels wasn’t going to regain consciousness for several minutes.
A rueful Daniels later told Boxingtalk that he’d never seen the punch coming.
And Lee later confided that his celebration hadn’t been quite as spontaneous as it might have appeared.
“Not long ago we were watching an old tape of Gerald McClellan,” said Lee. “He hit this guy with a one-two and caught him so perfectly that he ran over and started to climb the ropes before the guy even hit the floor. I said to myself ‘I’d love to be able to do that sometime myself!”
With manager/trainer Emanuel Steward in Las Vegas as part the HBO broadcast team, Steward’s nephew, Sugar Hill, and Lee’s Irish coach Tony Dunlop worked Lee’s corner.
Mark Clancy W4 Andrew Hutchinson... County Clare cruiserweight Mark Clancy (7-0-1) posted a unanimous decision over Andrew Hutchinson (2-9-2) in their four-round prelim. Clancy scored the only knockdown of the fight in the second round when he caught Hutchinson with an overhand right. As the opponent keeled over, he reached out with his left glove to stop his fall, but referee Eddie Cotton correctly administered a count. Clancy looked ready to finish it late in the second, but Hutchinson survived the round. Clancy, cut above the corner of his right eye, fought more cautiously over the final two stanzas but still did enough to win both of them. Billy Costello, Steve Epstein, and Malvina Lathan all scored the bout 40-35.
Mauren Shea TKO3 Eva Lidia Silva.. In the women’s bout on the card, Bronx lightweight Maureen Shea (10-0) took target practice on outclassed Mexican opponent Eva Lidia Silva (4-7) for the better part of three rounds until referee Robin Taylor had seen enough and stopped it. Silva was willing but utterly lacking in defensive skills, and Shea (who doubled as a publicist for Irish Ropes in the run-up to the St. Patrick’s card) might as well have been hitting a heavy bag. She landed pretty much everything she threw – lefts and rights to the body, hooks, jabs, rights to the head – whenever she wanted until Taylor invoked the mercy rule at 1:06 of the third.
Harry Coyle TKO1 Jason Collazo... Irish junior middleweight Henry Coyle made a successful pro debut, knocking out New Jersey first-timer Jason Collazo in just a minute and a half. Coyle walked Collazo to the ropes, where he hurt him with a hard right to the body before cuffing him with another right to the head. Obviously in some distress, Collazo made no attempt to rise and took Taylor’s ten-count on his knees.
Rodney Ray KO2 James Clancy... Heavyweight James Clancy looked on the way to making it a clean sweep for the five Irish-born fighters on the card when he floored Rodney Ray with a chopping right in the first round, but in the second Ray revived and caught the previously unbeaten Clancy flush with a right. Clancy struggled to make Cotton’s count, and was up at six, but toppled over backwards as the referee continued to count. By the time he got to ten, Clancy was still sitting, apparently dumbfounded, on the canvas, blood pouring from his nose.
Clancy said later that he had twisted his ankle on the way down, and that it had given out when he tried to stand. “Could be, but it was a hard punch,” said referee Cotton. “Clean, too. Clancy is now 9-1, Ray 4-4-1.
