… Hardy, McRae and Sandiford also win
“FOLLOWING my loss to him in the first fight, I went back home and trained hard, with the aim of avenging my defeat whenever I am presented with the opportunity and with the national lightweight title at stake, what better way to beat him this time around.” Those were the words of the newly crowned national lightweight champion in Barbados-based Revlon Lake, after he scored a stunning 11th round knockout victory over Mark Austin on Friday night in the main bout of the 15th Guyana Boxing Board of Control/Guyana Amateur Boxing Association ProAm card.
Also in winners’ row on the card which was held at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall were Simeon ‘Candyman’ Hardy, Ray Sandiford and Joel McRae who all defeated Eversley Browne, Orland ‘Pocket Rocket’ Rogers and Denny ‘Deadly’ Dalton respectively.
Having witnessed Sandiford scoring a unanimous decision victory over Rogers, after knocking him down in the second round, followed by Hardy’s impressive 2:07 seconds first round knockout victory over Browne, boxing fans gathered at the venue gave Dalton a round of applause on his return to the ring.
Dalton’s mom and dad were at ringside  to see their 36-year-old son take on the Trinidad and Tobago-based McRae,  but  after a cautious first round they saw Dalton undergo a series of assaults from his opponent, resulting in a standing eight count after he was knocked down.
However, as hard as he tried to put Dalton away, the 24-year-old dreadlocked McRae could not get the job done as his much older opponent weathered the numerous combinations he launched at him and at times responded with a few combinations of his own, even though they were not effective.
The action continued in the third and fourth rounds of the six-round encounter, with McRae looking for the punch to send his opponent down for the count. But Dalton was shrugging off all that was thrown at him as he refused to give up his advancing methods.
In the end, the three judges in Andrew Thorne, Ian Alves and Rawle Aaron handed the fight to McRae via a split decision, which did not go down well with some sections of the crowd.
Prior to the McRae/Dalton encounter, the fans’ appetite were whetted when Hardy who holds the record for the fastest knockout in the ProAm history, unleashed several unanswered combinations to the head and body of Browne, who took the comfortable position on the canvas following a vicious right hook to the midsection and refused to get up even after the referee completed administering his eight-count.
When Austin fought Lake for the first time last October, he was awarded the fight by a unanimous decision while some fans cried robbery, but this time around, those who stayed to the end of what started as a dull affair, were all smiling and rejoicing with the 32-year-old Lake.
From round one to nine, Austin was in superior control of the encounter and just needed to resort to the jab-and-move style of boxing to claim his first title.
However, for some unknown reason, he chose to go into a brawl with Lake who was not using his right hand until midway through the 10th round when he caught Austin with a punch to the head of his opponent. Such a punch shook off the ideas Austin had of brawling as he was content on holding on to not only survive the round, but also keep his lead intact.
Came the bell for the 11th round and what turned out to be the final round, with Austin – as he was throughout the fight – being the aggressor and advancing to his man before he had left his corner.
He was met with a straight left jab that was followed with a right hand that had the venom of one dozen rattlesnakes to the body, followed by another right hand to the head and as his knees felt the pressure of the punches, his body give in to same.
The end result was Austin lying on his back in a dazed manner and even though he managed to raise himself to a sitting position, referee Eion Jardine had already reached seven while Lake and his corner men were popping the champagne to celebrate the long-awaited victory.
In fact, the blows took effect on the 20-year-old Austin, as the doctors on hand were summoned with their stretcher to take him out of the arena and even when patrons were leaving the venue 20 minutes after, Austin was still in a delirious state on the stretcher and had to be taken to the hospital.
On the amateur side of things, Dellon Allicock, Marvin Ageday and Stefan Gouveia recorded 3-0 victories over Benjamin Henry, Delroy Nero and Andrew Lowenfield respectively, while Imran Khan walked away with a 2-1 victory over Richard Williamson.