By Dave Spencer
FightNews Canada

19 March 2007 - Troy Ross (15-1 11KO) capped off an exciting evening of boxing in Montreal Monday night as the Brampton Ontario cruiserweight scored a 2nd round knockout of British champion John "Buster" Keaton. Ross captured the vacant Commonwealth title with the KO that came at 2:08 of the round from a perfect counter left hand from against the ropes that put the British bruiser on his knees and unable to get up. Keaton, now 26-15, rose at seven but went back down and was unable to beat the count of ten. "It was just me being patient in there," said Ross, "we knew it was going happen, we just didn't know when."

"This was a great experience for me," said the new champ, displaying the new piece of hardware around his waist. "We've got a lot more things lined up so winning this title meant a lot and we'll pick it up from there." Ross who is scheduled to fight in London, England on April 13th says he will benefit from the relatively short work night. "It was definitely a quicker night than I expected, but that's a bonus. We trained for twelve and did a lot of rounds. Boxing is the easy part; training is the hard part."

The most dramatic fight of the night saw middleweight Walid Smichet (16-2-3 12KO) come from behind on the scorecards and score a stunning knockout of undefeated Matt O'Brien who seemed to be cruising to his 18th victory. "Twenty seconds to go, it doesn't get more disappointing than that," said O'Brien afterwards. "I figured keep on doing what I was doing. I thought I was winning pretty convincingly, I just can't believe it, twenty seconds left."

All three judges saw O'Brien up seven rounds to two as the BC fighter used his jab and boxing ability to neutralize a frustrated Smichet who had hoped for a brawl but had a hard time finding his opponent. The end came via a single right hand as Smichet came over the top of O'Brien's guard driving him into the canvas and unable to get up. "He got me with the right hook," said O'Brien as he tried to come to terms with last second turn-around, looking for answers from those around him. O'Brien gallantly tried to right himself but stumbled back down securing victory for Smichet at 2:37 of the tenth and final round, capturing the Interim Canadian Middleweight Title.

"Down here, right?" asked O'Brien as he looked at his team with glove nearing his hip.

"Yup," was the response, "Third round, you were beginning to drop it."

"Gotta keep the hands up," concluded O'Brien, "Gotta work on that defense."

Smichet is best advised to in baseball vernacular to 'Touch 'em all Walid, you'll never get a bigger hit,' as he had no answer for the speed and accuracy of his opponent in the early going and for the better part of nine rounds, and was fighting the best fight of his career. Compounding things was an accidental headbutt in the third round that opened up a cut over the left eye of Smichet and bothered him for the rest of the night as he constantly pawed at it, trying to clear it. "I couldn't see his right hand coming," said the Montreal based fighter afterwards, explaining that he was trying to go in and land combinations at the end but was willing to settle for the big punch. "He's certainly a tough guy in there. He has a very good reach and I had a hard time closing the distance."

Matt O'Brien wasn't the only fighter on the night to let victory slip away as Ian MacKillop survived two early knockdowns and battled back for a majority draw versus Stephane Desormiers in what was to have been for the vacant Canadian light middleweight title. MacKillop went down in both the first and fourth rounds and narrowly escaped another knockdown in the second in what was ruled a shove by referee Gerry Bolen.

MacKillop swept the last half of the fight which saw both fighters landing and hurting their opponent. "That's the worse fight of my life," said Desormiers after the contest. "It was very close fight and I guess a draw is correct." Judges Woodburn and Paquette had this one even at 94-94 wile Sylvain Leblanc saw it as 96-94. Promoters are already talking rematch for this one, "There better be one," said MacKillop, a bout in which both fighters admitted to mistakes. Desormiers lamented about only throwing one punch at a time in the later stages while MacKillop talked of "novice mistakes" as he often was off balance and paid dearly for coming in with wide shots. "We've done this. countless times in the gym," said MacKillop of his former gym mate, "At least this time we were getting paid for it.

"Stephane is a warrior and I expected nothing less from him, but I expected more from myself."

Undercard action saw Manolis Plaitis (7-0 3KO) score a spirited 59-55 (X3) decision over a very tough Irving Sidarta of Mexico while super-lightweight Dierry Jean (4-0 3KO) scored a first round knockdown on his way to a KO victory at 2:05 of the second round

Article republished with permission from Dave Spencer, FightNews Canada

Article source: http://www.fightnews.ca/#ross0320