Saturday Night Round Up – Ritson v Patera – Newcastle Review

It was a busy night of action at a raucous Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, with some decent contests taking place. Top of the bill was local lad, and wrecking ball, Lewis Ritson, challenging for the vacant European Title. Here I review a busy night of action.

Lewis Ritson came into the main event as a 1/66 overwhelming favourite, and never gave his Belgian opponent Francesco Patera a moments peace in the opening half of their European Lightweight Title match, cutting off the ring and landing with spiteful punches in the early going. Patera started to warm to the task though, and in the fifth he came on strong, landing with strong shots to head and body. The following round saw more success for the visitor but Ritson rallied to close the round well.

Ritson maintained a frantic pace, but Patera kept up, and stunned the local man with a body to head combination right at the end of the seventh. Ritson seemed to still be feeling the effects into the eighth, and Patera was visibly growing in confidence, landing with several power punches. The rounds were becoming hard to score, with frequent exchanges of punches. Patera scored massive success in the tenth, visibly hurting Ritson with left hands to the body, and the Newcastle man was forced to ride out the round.

The penultimate round saw Ritson finally gain some much needed successes, but Patera never stopped coming forward. It all seemed to be on the line in the final round, and both men went for broke in a close round. A fascinating fight went to the cards, and after some delay, a score of 116-112 for Ritson was over ruled by two scores of the same to crown Patera the new Champion in a huge upset. Patera deserved the win in the end in an impressive performance. A rematch would be welcome.

It was a scrappy clash of styles in the British and Commonwealth Super Lightweight Titles clash between Robbie Davies Junior and Glenn Foot. Heads clashed early on, with Davies badly cut by his left eye. Davies’ boxing skills were meeting Foot’s no nonsense bulldozer approach, and it made for some untidy action early doors. It was a difficult to score fight, but in the second half, Davies started to pick his punches a lot more to control the action against the come forward Sunderland man. Foot seemed to fade late on as Davies took the fight by the scruff of the neck to pill away down the stretch comfortably. Scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 117-112 saw the Liverpudlian take the Titles.

Joshua Buatsi was in scintillating form in stopping the usually durable Frenchman, Tony Averlant in the opener of their Light Heavyweight contest. A left to the body did the damage, with Averlant just about beating the count. He was caught with the same shot later in the round, and this time there was no way back, as Averlant looked over to his corner to let them know that he couldn’t continue, and eventually was out for the full count.

Popular Conisbrough Heavyweight Dave Allen beat German based Syrian, Samir Nebo with exactly the same shot as Buatsi. With just over a minute gone in the round, Allen connected with a hard left to the body, and Nebo couldn’t beat the count. Allen hopes to meet former WBA Champion, Lucas Browne in the near future.

In the show opener, Middlesbrough’s Simon Vallily looked devoid of ideas from the off, and was broken down to defeat against the much hungrier Craig Glover in their British Cruiserweight Title eliminator. Glover was the only man that would benefit from this though, as Vallily came in to the contest three pounds overweight. Glover had Vallily down in the opener, with a power left hook, and in truth, Vallily just didn’t recover fully from it. Vallily proceeded to posture and chat to his opponent, and lost a point in the fourth for a deliberate headbutt. Glover boxed impressively throughout, and in the eighth round, a power right hand signalled the beginning of the end for Vallily. Powerful follow up shots followed, causing referee, Howard Foster to step in and stop the fight.