John Hedges beats Ellis Zorro to retain English cruiserweight title

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RingMagazine.com |10 hours ago

John Hedges beats Ellis Zorro to retain English cruiserweight title

John Hedges has had a rollercoaster year but the English cruiserweight champion finished it on a high by boxing his way to a 10-round unanimous decision over Ellis Zorro at Indigo at the O2 in London.

Earlier this year, the Essex-based 23-year-old found himself without a trainer just six weeks before his vacant title fight with Nathan Quarless. In need of help, Hedges called upon his friend and former two-weight world champion, Ricky Hatton, and moved north to Manchester.

The pair quickly gelled and put together the perfect plan for Hedges to outbox Quarless.

Hedges lost a friend when Hatton tragically died earlier this year but he also found himself without a trainer. Rather than postponing his maiden defence against Zorro, Hedges, returned to London, quickly linked up with Frank Greaves and got on with the task of preparing for the toughest test of his career.

Standing 6-foot-6 tall, Hedges (12-0, 3 KOs) pawed away with his jab, forcing Zorro (18-4, 7 KOs) to close the distance.

Two years ago, Zorro was exposed by The Ring cruiserweight champion, Jai Opetaia, but has always proven to be a tough competitor at domestic level. He pressed forward but struggled to land regularly and continuously fell short with his right hand.

A sharp one-two snapped Zorro’s head back and earned Hedges the third round and his sharper, more accurate punching was the difference between the two in a slow paced contest.

By the fifth, Zorro seemed to be running out of ideas. He managed to land the occasional hard jab but couldn’t put anything meaningful behind it and Hedges was content to let the Londoner lead before countering with his own shots.

Zorro was making the mistake of throwing single punches and Hedges began to put more weight in his own counters. In the seventh, a clipping right hook seemed to drop Zorro but the referee ruled it a slip and he followed it up with a hard straight left.

The action petered out as the rounds passed and although he never grabbed the fight by the scruff of the neck, Hedges did seem to establish a measure of control.

The fight went to the scorecards and the judges agreed that Hedges had done enough to retain his title. The scores were 98-93, 97-94, 96-94.

Buttigieg Rounds Off Perfect Year

Leli Buttigieg (11-0, 3 KOs) picked up his fifth win of a busy year by easily outboxing Moldovan trialhorse, Victor Ionascu (14-10, 10 KOs), over eight rounds.

The Newham-based middleweight dominated this super middleweight fight from the opening bell. It was immediately obvious that Buttigieg was too big and too young and he stalked Ionascu around the ring behind a busy jab and a straight right hand.

The 20-year-old realised that he had more chance of opening up the stubborn Ionascu by concentrating more on the body and he began to mix a left hook downstairs into his combinations.

Apart from that, Buttigieg kept things simple. There were precious few feints and he concentrated on slowly breaking down his man with his pressure and work rate.

Ionascu set his mind on hearing the final bell and once he got used to the weight and speed of Buttigieg’s punches, he made it without too many serious alarms.

The result was a formality and Buttigieg was awarded a 80-72 decision.

Bevan Passes Biggest Test Yet

Taylor Bevan (7-0, 7 KOs) produced the most well rounded performance of his short, explosive career with a sixth round stoppage of Mickey Ellison (15-9, 5 KOs).

The Commonwealth Games silver medallist has made an exciting start to life as a professional but - on paper - the tough, experienced Ellison represented a sizeable step up in competition for the super middleweight.

Bevan’s fast jab were a feature of the early action but Ellison showed his own ambition by finding a hard right hand and a solid left hook of his own as an interesting opening round drew to a close.

Unperturbed, 24-year-old Bevan got right back to his jab in the second. He damaged Ellison’s nose and although the older man tried to retaliate, he had his head rocked back by a looping overhand right and a some short uppercuts.

A hard right hand as the bell sounded to end round three seemed to sap some of Ellison’s desire and Bevan bossed the action from that point on.

Early in the sixth, Bevan hurt Ellison with a left hook and with their man under heavy fire, Ellison’s team threw in the towel and saved their man for another day.

Mitchell Gets Off To Flying Start

Connor Mitchell (1-0, 1 KO) got his professional career off to a flying start with a second round knockout of Argentina’s Fernando Valdez (1-20).

The 20-year-old featherweight is the son of former world title challenger, Kevin Mitchell, and he got off to a predictably fast start. He found his range and timing immediately, hitting and hurting Valdez with some fast left hands and well picked uppercuts.

In the second round, one of those left hands hurt Valdez and Mitchell continued punching until the Argentinean hit the canvas.

Referee, Lee Every, let Valdez continue but quickly stepped in to stop the fight when Mitchell pounced on him with an accurate follow up assault.

Other undercard results:

Bantamweight: Tiah Mai Ayton (3-0, 3 KOs) def. Ana Karla Vaz De Moraes (7-1, 3 KOs) by third-round knockout.
Junior Lightweight: Adam Maca (4-0, 4 KOs) def. Brandon Gallardo Vargas (3-13-1, 1 KO) by second-round KO.
Middleweight: William Crolla (9-1, 7 KOs) def. Harley Hodgetts (5-6, 1 KO) by third-round TKO.
Super Flyweight: Maisey Rose Courtney (9-1) def. Sara Orszagi (2-12) by six round decision (60-54)
Junior Middleweight: Alexey Shendrick (4-0) def. Christophe Mbori Endanga (7-8-1, 2 KOs) by six round decision (60-54)

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