O'maison bows to power of Dalton Smith
The Sheffield Star is the city’s most famous tabloid newspaper. However, on Saturday night, a new type of star joined the iconic boxing galaxy of the Steel City as Dalton Smith put on a show in his hometown to become the British Super-Lightweight champion.
The night started off well for the homegrown talent with unbeaten prospect and teammate of Smith’s, Junaid Bostan, stopping Jose Manuel Lopez Clavero in the sixth round. Mansfield’s Nico Leivars was then unlucky to claim a technical draw due to a clash of heads before victories for Aqib Fiaz and Kieron Conway topped off the undercard.
Campbell Hatton then kicked off the main card in stylish fashion with a dominant six-round victory over Michal Dufek before it was time for the first of three title fights.
The hard-hitting unbeaten Mancunian Jordan Thompson took a big step up in opposition, taking on the game Czech Vasil Ducar for the IBF European Cruiserweight crown. After surviving a late knockdown, the judges decided ‘Troublesome’ had done more than enough to claim a unanimous points victory. Johnny Fisher then put on a show in front of his 1,000+ travelling fans with a second-round stoppage win over Michal Reissinger before Sandy Ryan avenged her only loss as a professional by getting the better of Argentine Erica Farias over 10 rounds.
Then it was time for the main event. With ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ by the Arctic Monkeys blaring, a loud Sheffield crowd awaited two of the city’s own battling it out for the famous Lonsdale belt.
The fight started slow, Sam O’maison taking the centre of the ring whilst Smith stayed patient, sliding in and out of range and making his opponent miss. The unbeaten prospect started to find his range in the second-round, countering nicely before he made the big breakthrough in the third as he dropped O’Maison with a beautifully timed straight right left hook combination.
The former English champion rallied but Smith was well in control and it slowly started to become a matter of “when”, and not “if”, he’d get O’maison out of there.
Then in the sixth, Smith finally got the finish he’d been craving. After sending his opponent to the canvas with a sharp backhand, ‘Thunder’ fainted to the body then looped a big right hand over the top which landed flush on the chin of O’maison with the referee waving the contest off almost immediately.
Meanwhile over in Northern Ireland, Michael Conlan bounced back from his devastating defeat to Leigh Wood with a near-punch-perfect victory over Miguel Marriaga.
Very much the betting favourite, Conlan was fighting in his hometown for the first time in exactly a year and he did not fail to disappoint. After starting in typical Mick Conlan fashion, using his evidently superior hand speed and footwork, he frustrated the Colombian former world title challenger who seemingly wanted the fight to take place inside of a phone box in the centre of the ring.
Conlan didn’t fall for the antics, though, and his patience paid off when dropping Marriaga in three consecutive rounds towards the back end of the fight. The 10th, for him, wasn’t ideal, but it was already evident by then that he’d done more than enough to win the contest on the scorecards.
On the undercard there were victories for the unbeaten Kieran Molloy, Kurt Walker, Paddy Donovan and Padraig McCrory whilst the likable pair of Tyrone McKenna and Sean McComb both picked up points victories.
Across the pond, the unbeaten Michael McKinson looked to defy the odds against one of the hardest-hitting welterweights on the planet in the shape of Vergil Ortiz. It was very much billed as the puncher vs the boxer. However, Ortiz, who had a 100% KO ratio, showed that he is far more than just a puncher. Out-skilling his notoriously tricky opponent, he methodically broke McKinson down throughout the fight and after dropping him in rounds eight and nine, McKinson’s corner decided they had seen enough and threw the towel in to save their man for another day.
The victory takes Ortiz’s record to 19 wins with 19 KO’s and now sets up an enticing clash with Terence Crawford if the potential unification fight with Errol Spence Jr doesn’t materialise.
With no major boxing in the UK this weekend, we’ll be reviewing Teofimo Lopez’s return to action next week while looking ahead to the all-important heavyweight unification clash between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua in Saudi Arabia.