Scottish Amateur And Professional Boxing
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The sixth ABS senior finals were held at the Time Capsule in Coatbridge last night,and were arguably the best finals yet.
Previous years had seen the fights happen in order of weight, where often the end of the night bouts were witnessed by very few as most of the crowd had left. This year it had a better format, mixing the weights up, with the Lightweight bout between Gary McArthur and Mitch Prince topping the bill.
Bout one was the 51kg Flyweight final between Usmaan Hussain (Kinross) and Stephen Marshall (Inverness). Despite it only being Marshall's third ever fight, he started the sharper against his far more experienced opponent, catching him with some good head shots in round one.
Hussain came to life in round two though and from then on constantly pressured the game Marshall who was looking a lot more schooled than his two fight record would have suggested. In the end, Hussain ran out a worthy 29-11 winner although many would have argued that it was closer.
The Bantamweight final at 54kg was a cracker with Granite City's James Ancliffe always being the aggressor against the slick Mohammed Steto from the Kingdom club. Steto looked very sharp and elusive throughout the fight and was at times more than willing to stand and trade blows with Ancliffe, with a degree of success to boot.
Steto looked to be leading after the first two rounds, but gradually Ancliffe's work rate began to catch up with him and Ancliffe pulled into the lead.
Again, at the final bell, the score of 22-13 in favour of Ancliffe did not reflect what was a very close contest, but gave the Aberdeen fighter his second successive Scottish crown.
At Featherweight, Jason Hastie (Gilmerton) comfortably outpointed Granite City's Northern district champion Darren Traynor by 20 points to 7, Hastie always beating his taller opponent to the punch.
Next up was the Super Heavyweights, James Perry of Larkhall against Fraser Thirde of Arbroath (or "land of the smokies" as the ring MC announced it). Perry, the taller and heavier by two stone always looked in command and it was no surprise when he was given the verdict by a margin of 25-5.
This was followed by superb performances at Heavyweight by both Stephen Simmons (Leith Victoria) and Barry Stewart (Inverness).
Simmons began by thudding home some big shots to the head of Stewart and forcing the Inverness boxer to take a standing eight count in the first.
Stewart bravely came back in the second, landing some heavy shots of his own and hurting Simmons, forcing him to retreat momentarily.
Simmons regained composure and the upper hand in round three, again landing more solid shots on the outgunned Stewart. The judges at ringside called a halt to the proceedings halfway through the third with Simmons the winner courtesy of the 20 point outscoring rule.
Next up was a bit of a scrappy affair with Craigmillar's Kenny Anderson always looking in control against the tough Matt Donald of Kincorth ABC. This was a tough fight to score, with both boxers coming forward and clashing at times, though Anderson usually came off best when punching out of the clinches. A score of 22-10 handed Anderson his second Light Heavyweight title in two years.
The 75kg Middleweight clash between Craig McEwan and Philip Warner of Shotts's Springhill Boys Club was always expected to be one sided and this proved to be the case, with the classy McEwan underlining his status as Scotland's nunber one amateur by outscoring Warner by 20 points before the end of the second round.
The 69kg Welterweight final saw the performance of the night and the emergence of a real big prospect in Paisley YMCA's Kris Carslaw.
In only his third amateur bout, the former world kick-boxing champion was pitted against Denbeath's Willie Bilan. On paper, the far greater experience of Bilan alone would have said this would be a pretty straightforward bout. Wrong!
Bilan, the taller of the two, started the first round using his jab well and outboxed Carslaw. He looked to be leading going into the second, but Carslaw turned on the style in the second, using his fast hands to pick holes in Bilan's guard.
The tide looked to be turning, and in the third and fourth round Carslaw was simply far too good for Bilan, at times looking flash and making the Denbeath fighter look very bad as he dodged his attacks and picked him off at will.
Nobody in the audience took anything for granted though as it wasn't in the script for Carslaw to win, but when the judges declared him the winner by an astonishing score of 49-32, everyone knew justice had been done and they had witnessed one of the best performances in years from a Scottish boxer.
British Lightweight champion, Mark Hastie, had moved up to 10 stone for this year's championships and was up against Kincorth's Lee Burnett who'd looked excellent when winning his semi-final by a perfect 20-0 score against Glenboig ABC's Eddie Doyle.
Both boxers stood and traded punches throughout the fight, but most of Burnett's were hitting gloves and it was Hastie's which were scoring. Hastie, lifting his fifth consecutive national senior title by a 17-3 scoreline, will now be looking to add the British Light-Welterweight title to the Lightweight one he picked up last year.
Topping the bill at Lightweight was last year's Light-Welterweight champion Gary McArthur of Blantyre Miners ABC against Mitch Prince of Broadwood.
This was yet another classic between two contrasting fighters, McArthur the taller man with bags of skill against powerhouse brawler Prince.
From the off Prince went at McArthur, throwing every punch in the book and constantly keeping him on the run.
One minute into the round however, Prince had two points docked when in a clinch. McArthur had his arm round his head and leant down, only for Prince to stand up, lift McArthur off his feet and shrug him over his shoulders.
McArthur landed heavily on his back and was took two minutes to recover before the fight continued.
Prince kept on the attack, undoubtedly looking the stronger of the two, with McArthur looking to box clever and use his ringcraft to keep out of the way of Prince's shots.
Yet another hard fight to score, Prince looked ahead going into the last round. McArthur was able to frustrate Prince in the last round though with some good boxing and he took the round pretty comfortably.
At the end, the fight looked in the balance and McArthur was crowned champion by a score of 21-19, the deducted points possibly costing Prince the fight.
Nonetheless Gary McArthur boxed superbly and is yet again the Scottish champion, rounding off an excellent night of boxing.
Report by George McLellan at ringside.