Kiko in the teeth for Martinez by Kevin Taylor Mar 7th 2008

Leicester's Rendall Munroe sensationally took the European Super-Bantamweight crown off of holder Kiko Martinez by majority decision in an absorbing contest at the Harvey Hadden Sports Complex in Nottingham last night. The twenty-seven year old came back strongly in the second part of the fight to take the title away from the hard hitting Spaniard who tasted defeat for the first time in an eighteen fight career. The English title holder started cautiously obviously weary of the Spaniard's power which had been on display for all to see in Dublin when he explosively stopped the hometown hero Bernard Dunne in the first round to claim the title. Although throwing jabs throughout the opening rounds Munroe just couldn't find his range but Martinez was also unable to connect with any telling shots, missing by a whisker on several occasions with loaded left hooks. Roared on by a partisan crowd Munroe continued to let Martinez stalk him while trying to pick him off with the jab and as the champion seemed to be running out of ideas he started to claw his way back into the fight although most of his shots were thrown in pitter-patter style including a barrage on the ropes when he must have landed with around twenty punches on Martinez' gloves in comical fashion. As the fight went into the final couple of rounds promoter Frank Maloney was desperately looking to find out the score as his man seemed to be inching closer to pulling off an upset. Going into the last with Munroe the stronger, both men stood and traded before once more Munroe got back to throwing the jab and keeping his smaller opponent out of range. At the final bell it was the Munroe camp who thought they had the title won, and the champion seemed to know in his head he had lost his title. For the record I had it as 114-114 draw as I felt although he did a lot of work, most of Munroe's shots were missing and I had the Spaniard well up at the halfway stage before Munroe came back in the fight in the later rounds. One judge agreed with my scoring while the other two both scored in 115-113 to the hometown favourite. The stage now seems set for a clash with British champion Esham Pickering for both titles. On the undercard Jason 'Too Smooth' Booth defended his Commonwealth bantamweight title for the first time by defeating the Ghanian Lantey Addy by an unanimous decision over twelve rounds in the chief support. The Nottingham boxer putting the man from Ghana down in the fourth, after Addy had started the brighter of the two, and from that stage onwards it was a pretty routine win for Booth. In a big upset 6ft 7in Scott Belshaw lost his unbeaten record to Russian Daniel Peret by a 59-58 decision from referee Terry O'Connor. It was a bad performance from the man dubbed the 'White George Foreman' by promoter Frank Maloney and it was refreshing to see referee O'Connor deservedly hold aloft the hand of Russian at the end of the six rounds. "It was the worst performance I have ever seen by a heavyweight." Frank Maloney exclaimed after the contest. "Although he's not using it as an excuse, Scott is saying he couldn't focus after a friend was killed by a punch outside a nightclub recently. "This the hurt game though and what will happen if Scott hurts someone with a punch, you can't be a passive in this sport. "I have made an instant rematch with the Russian and Scott must show and improvement on his performance tonight. I have no problems with the referee's decision tonight." The Russian was overjoyed by his victory and found the time to go to Belshaw's corner and explain what he was doing wrong, he was also seen in deep conversation with Belshaw and his trainers later in the evening once again seemingly telling them how to beat him in the rematch! Tyrone Wright who is looking to take the super-middleweight's title away from his Nottingham rival Carl Froch, came up short against former British champion Brian Magee losing 58-54 on points. Wright started well in a ragged contest putting the Belfast man down in the second with a straight right, before himself going down in the last round when caught by a left hook. Elsewhere on the undercard Cardiff's Gary Buckland was too strong for Alex Spitko and referee O'Connor jumped in to stop the contest in the third round of a scheduled six, while Derby's Scott Haywood boxed brilliantly in patches to outpoint Stoke's Gary Reid over six rounds, putting the smaller man down in the second with a straight right.

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