Fraser Wilkinson upsets William Crolla on Catterall-Eubank undercard

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Fraser Wilkinson upsets William Crolla on Catterall Eubank undercard

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John Evans

RingMagazine.com |2 days ago

Fraser Wilkinson upsets William Crolla on Catterall-Eubank undercard

MANCHESTER, England — Jack Catterall had a successful, albeit unspectacular welterweight debut to inflict Harlem Eubank's first pro defeat in their AO Arena headliner.

Before then, eight bouts across six weight divisions preceded them on Matchroom's latest venture to north-west England, read below for the prelim results.

Aberdeen’s Fraser Wilkinson rounded out the prelims by stopping home favourite, William Crolla, in the sixth round of their junior middleweight fight.

The calm, skilful Wilkinson (12-2, 3 KOs) quickly found the mark with his southpaw jab and put an accurate left hand behind it regularly as the always aggressive Crolla was made to pay for a lack of head movement.

The heavy-handed Crolla (8-1, 6 KOs) had blazed through the early stages of his career but quickly ran out of ideas and began to press forward in straight lines. Halfway through the fifth he was badly hurt and bundled over after taking a hard left hand.

Wilkinson refused to let him off the hook. He got straight jumped straight back on Crolla, pinning him on the ropes and landing enough to force a stoppage at 1.07 of the sixth.

Alfie Middlemiss (4-0) has been busy since turning professional late last year and despite picking up a slight cut over his left eye courtesy of an opening round clash of heads, the Manchester born super featherweight remained unbeaten by boxing his way to a four-round decision win over York-based Ethiopian, Mohammed Wako (1-6). The score was 40-36.

Former WBC featherweight champion, Skye Nicolson (13-1, 2 KO), got back to winning ways with an easy second-round stoppage of Bolivia’s Carla Camila Campos Gonzales (9-4, 8 KOs).

In March, Nicolson lost her title and unbeaten record to American’s Tiara Brown. The Australian has decided that she will now compete at super bantamweight and the fight with Gonzales was made at 124lbs.

Nicolson was far too good for the Bolivian. She hurt Gonzales with a straight southpaw left hand midway through the second round and referee, John Latham, quickly stopped the action after 1.21.

As the first fans made their way into AO Arena, Stockport’s Niall Brown (16-0, 6 KOs) made his way to the ring to open the show. The 27 year-old super middleweight dropped Moldova’s Victor Ionascu (14-7, 10 KOs) with a clipping left hook as the opening round drew to a close. Ionascu got up but was dropped again at the end of the fourth and retired by his corner before the fifth could start.