‘Six Head' gives ‘Deadly Dalton boxing lesson
• captures Junior Middleweight title
Kaieteur News
April 9, 2007
It might be a little too late for Guyana's first world champion Andrew ‘Six Head' Lewis to regain the lofty status he once held on the international stage, but after viewing his systematic dismantling of ‘Deadly' Denny Dalton, a brief resurgence appears imminent.
Lewis, who gave Guyana its first world title after defeating American James Page in February 2001, scored a unanimous points decision over Dalton in their 12-round contest to become the new junior middleweight champion last Saturday night at the National Park
Watched by a fair-sized audience that included the Ireland cricket team, Lewis displayed crafty skills and impeccable defence to subdue a tough, but totally outclassed Dalton in a fight which was dubbed ‘The Conclusion' after their two previous meeting failed to produce convincing results.
For his effort he took home the winner's prize of $1million. Speaking after the fight, boxing promoter, Odinga Lumumba said the match was aimed at taking boxing to a different level and expressed gratitude to the sponsors in supporting the endeavor.
In the main supporting bout, Australian-based Lennox Allen claimed a unanimous decision over Winston Pompey in their 10-round junior middleweight scrap. Allen had earlier sent Pompey twice to the canvas, during the contest.
In other match-ups of the evening, Sharon ‘The Stone' Warde was knocked out by a vicious Veronica Blackman right cross in the second minute of the first round, while the opening fight of the night was a heavyweight collision between Guyanese Mitchell Rogers and Barbadian Curtis Murray with the former securing a technical knockout (TKO) victory over the Barbadian, who retired at the end of the third round in their scheduled eight rounder.
Dexter Marques, the 2001 and 2006 Caribbean boxing champion, displayed his class with a devastating knockout over Carlton Skeete with a wicked left cross to the head to win their contest.
In the feature contest, Lewis was quickly into stride and unleashed a barrage of left, right combinations to the head and body of Dalton to steal the opening round.
This pattern of dominance continued through the next four rounds. Dalton whose strategy in the past was to absorb plenty punches and hope that Lewis run out of steam tried to increase his tempo in the middle rounds, but a noticeably fit Lewis continued to throw terrific combinations and then clinch with his opponent.
It was an excellent display of experience as the crowd urged on the former champ, who was peppering Dalton with a consistent flurry of punches with no reply forthcoming. Dalton had very few moments of glory as Lewis immediately after landing damaging punches expertly clinched with his opponent, simply nullifying his power.
Round ten saw Lewis land a crunching uppercut to the mid-section that nearly took Dalton off his feet which was followed by a sharp left straight down the pipe that staggered him.
Such was Lewis' dominance that he closed the round with a consecutive left hooks that landed on the jaw of his opponent. After that it was a matter of preservation and he coasted to an emphatic win and must have reclaimed the support of many who had deserted him.
Meanwhile, speaking at the end of the evening's proceedings, Digicel General Manager Tim Bahraini congratulated the boxers on “a real boxing performance”. Bahraini added that Digicel will continue to support the further development of sports in Guyana.
Odinga Lumumba said that the necessary steps have been made in securing Lewis with the shot at another international encounter.
Lewis congratulated his opponent for a well fought match, adding that Lumumba and other local promoters were the ones who paved the way in his acquisition of the title in this the third and final meeting between the pair.