TWO of Guyana’s boxing champions, Elton ‘The Bully’ Dharry and Kwesi ‘Lightning Struck Assassin’ Jones had two opponents in mind who they felt can help boost their career with a victory.
They got their chance to achieve such

last Sunday night, when the Guyana Boxing Board of Control, in collaboration with Elton Dharry and Pearl Vodka, hosted Night of Champions 2 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
However, the Guyanese experienced mixed fortunes; for while Dharry waltzed away with a unanimous decision victory over Jamaica’s Rudolph Hedge to put all fears to rest, Jones suffered a humiliating fourth-round knockout at the hands of Barbados’ Shawn ‘The Sniper’ Cox.
Also in winners’ row were Rudolph Fraser who won by a TKO over Berbice’ Richard Williamson after the latter suffered an injury to his left shoulder, Dexter ‘The Kid’ Marques proved to be too strong for Selwyn Lett. and Syria’s Mahmoud Loul, whose second-round knockout victory over Patrick Boston must have spelt the end of Boston’s career, at the same time kick-started his very own.
Dharry faced Hedge for the World Boxing Union (WBU) America’s bantamweight title and signalled his intentions to add the silverware to his collection, when he dropped his man in the final minute of the first round, with a right hook that found its mark.
Hedge beat the count that was given by referee Eion Jardine and after a heated exchange between himself and Dharry in the next two rounds, took the initiative in the fourth stanza by unleashing several unanswered combinations to the body of his opponent, who withstood them all with ease.
Both pugilists traded punches in the fifth round, but Dharry was the one who went ahead by outpunching his Jamaican opponent, who began to show swellings under both eyes, courtesy of Dharry’s jabs.
A battle for supremacy ensued in the sixth round, where Hedge sought a one-punch knockout against Dharry, who was content on giving a boxing lesson, in which he was successful, forcing the crowd to chant his name on several occasions during the remaining rounds.
Dharry continued to hunt and attack Hedge in the seventh and eighth rounds, unleashing combinations to the body and head at will, drawing a standing ovation from the appreciative crowd at the venue, even as Hedge threw back combinations of his own to Dharry’s body.
When the bell sounded, a round of applause went up, as the crowd chanted Dharry’s name, while the judge’s scorecard read 99-91, 96-93 and 99-91, all in favour of Dharry, the United States-based, Guyana and World Boxing Council/Caribbean Boxing Federation bantamweight champion, whose record improved to 12-5-1, while Hedge slipped to 7-1-3.
Prior to Dharry’s impressive win, the Cox/Jones affair was heading in the direction of a perfect curtain-raiser for the main bout, if one was to take into consideration the pre-fight comments, especially from Jones.
Cox had never lost a bout in Guyana, chalking up wins over former World Boxing Association cruiserweight champion Wayne ‘Big Truck’ Brathwaite, national heavyweight champion Kurt Bess and Leon Gilkes just to name a few, and Jones wanted to break that jinx.
He pushed and tugged at Cox during the first two rounds, riding over his Barbadian opponent’s jab while avoiding the left hand that put away both Brathwaite and Bess with ease, before he was warned by Jardine to fight and not operate as if he was a wrestler on one of the WWE shows.
At 55 seconds into the fourth round, Jones forgot to avoid the left hand and in true heroic fashion, walked into same and the end result was a picture of him being prostrate on the ground, as if begging for forgiveness.
He got up at the count of four, but while his mind was saying yes, his legs had other ideas, taking him in a drunken fashion to the ropes, where he tried to hold on for his life, forcing Jardine to wave off the proceedings.
In fact, Jones was in such a state, that the humanitarian side of Cox was shown, when he ably assisted his opponent to his corner, where his mom, who had a concerned look on her face, rushed into the ring to render assistance, the way a parent tends to a battered and bruised child.
After the decision was announced, Jones made an attempt to apologise to the crowd on hand, who vented their disappointment and frustration, by booing him out of the ring, with his record reading 10-3 with the loss while Cox improved to 16-1.
The night’s action, which was witnessed by Minister of Sport Dr Frank Anthony, Director of Sport Neil Kumar and GBBC president Peter Abdool, got under way with Williamson (3-2-0) taking on Fraser (7-5-1) for the second time, after recording a victory when they first met last November.
Williamson took the first two rounds of their six-round encounter, jabbing and hitting a tired-looking Fraser at will and even though he weathered a few combinations to the body later in the fight, a slipped shoulder which came about from an attempted left hook forced a halt in proceedings at 2:43secs of the round, handing Fraser the win.
Marques (12-2) is the WBC/CABOFE flyweight champion and he underlined that fact with several punches to the body and head of Lett (2-4) during their eight-round affair, that the referee decided the Barbadian was no match for his opponent and waved off the fight in the third round.
Loul is a former kickboxing champion in his native Syria and was making his debut as a boxer against Boston, who is known more for the 20-second first-round TKO he suffered at the hands of Simeon ‘Candyman’ Hardy than anything else.
Within the first two minutes of the first round, Boston was sent to the unmarked canvas twice and even though he beat the count, the sympathy shown by Loul allowed him to catch a breather and survive the stanza.
The second and what turned out to be the final round was no different from the first, with Boston being decked twice, but found it difficult to regroup from the second knockdown, which occurred at the sound of the bell, with referee Dexter Torrington waving the contest off after administering the count.