Marianne Marston is the Master at York Hall – British Boxing News
By Peter Silkov (At Ringside)
Last night, Bethnal Green’s York Hall played host to a lively night of boxing on Dave Murphy’s latest promotion.
The night’s action opened with a four round Cruiserweight match between debutante Jerome Haywood and Rolandas Cesna 3-23-2. This was a competitive match, with the more experienced Cesna showing some wily survival skills throughout. Haywood looked composed for a fighter making his professional debut, pressuring Cesna throughout the match with a useful jab and some good body shots. Haywood looked as if his body assaults might stop Cesna in the 3rd round, but Cesna survived to hear the last bell. The referee’s verdict was 40-38, for Haywood. Indicating that two of the rounds had been scored even.
The second fight of the night was at middleweight and featured Nathan Decastro 3-0, 2 KO’s, against Deividas Sajauka, 4-6. Decastro has already proved to be a popular performer, after scoring knockout wins in his first two fights, but this time he was made to go the 4 rounds distance by the rugged Sajauka. Decastro started fast and looked to be trying for another early victory, but Sajuuka fought back gamely and countered well, often catching the over eager Decastro with punches of his own.
Decastro ended the fight with his left eye tightly shut, virtue of Sajauka’s plucky counters. Decastro held the edge throughout the action with his high work rate and heavier punches, but found out in this his 3rd fight that you can’t knock everyone out. Although Decastro clearly won the fight, he would have learned a lot from going these four rounds, not least that he needs to tighten up on his defense in future. Having said that he has a crowd-pleasing style and looks to be someone to watch as he progresses.
Lightweight Antonio Counihan, 4-0, faced Janos Vass 6-13-1, 5KO’s, in the nights third contest. Counihan has already been hailed a prospect, and showed his promise as he put pressure on Vass from the start and never let him get into the fight. Counihan is a well-balanced boxer with fast hands and good technique, and showed some decent punching power. Vass had a difficult time getting through the first 2 rounds, as Counihan’s attacks kept him on the defensive throughout. In the 3rd round, Counihan stepped up his assaults, pinning Vass to the ropes and punishing the body, with Vass trying to retreat. Eventually, as the round entered its midway point, Vass’s corner had seen enough and threw in the towel. On this performance Counihan is another prospect to keep an eye on.
The nights 4th contest saw lightweight Mark Alexander 11-6, 2KO’s, make his first appearance in a British ring for 5 years, against Tadas Stulginskas 2-4, 2KO’s.
After a quiet first two rounds Alexander edged with some neat boxing, as he worked a useful jab. The action warmed up in the 3rd round as Alexander attacked with more fire, focusing on Stulginskas’s body and soon had him in some distress.
Stulginskas seemed ready to collapse under Alexander’s attack, when his corner threw in the towel. Afterwards it was announced that Stulginskas had injured his left knee.
Siar Ozgul 5-0 is another fighter who has already become popular with the fans, and he took on veteran Matt Scriven, 14-84-1, 3 KO’s in a 4 round light-middleweight contest. This was, in terms of pure action, the fight of the night, as both men started going toe-to-toe from the start. Ozgul was the main aggressor, especially in the first 2 rounds, opening up with two-handed attacks to Scriven’s head and body. However, Scriven showed his experience in covering up under most of the attacks and then coming back with shots of his own. By the third round Ozgul has slowed down a bit and Scriven was landing some good shots of his own through the Ozgul defense, but Ozgul still edged the round with his harder punches, and slightly higher work rate.
In the fourth and final round, Ozgul staged a grand finish and pinned Scriven in a corner as he landed some thunderous right handers; one of them sent Scriven’s mouthpiece flying into the audience. It was the lost mouthpiece that probably saved Scriven from a stoppage, as there was a delay while it was retrieved, and then replaced, before the action was allowed to continue. Unbelievably, it was the gutsy Scriven who went onto the attack, hurting Ozgul with a right hand, which caused him to hang on until the bell. Although the verdict was 40-6 to Ozgul, Scriven had given an amazing performance of his own in this match that marked his return to the ring for the first time in 3 years, in what was his 100th professional fight.
The main event of the night was Marianne Marston’s 3-1, 2 KO’s, 10 round contest with Marianna Gulyas 13-19, 2 KO’s, for the vacant MBC International Super-Bantamweight Championship. Marianne dominated this contest from start to finish. Coming forward aggressively with her southpaw jab, she seemed altogether too strong and technically proficient for Gulyas. The fight entered a pattern early with Marianne forcing the action and landing good clean shots with her jab and left hand, and Gulyas staying mainly on the retreat, as she concentrated on defense and only replied with attacks of her own occasionally. Gulyas was down from slips in the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 8th and 9th rounds, and was down from what were ruled genuine knockdowns in the 5th, and 9th rounds. The action was messy at times, as Gulyas repeatedly held on, in an effort to stifle Marston’s attacks, and in the 8th round, both women fell down together in a tangled heap by the ropes. At the end of the scheduled 10 rounds, Marston was judged the clear winner on points, with Gulyas doing well to just last the distance. With her new MBC International Super-Bantamweight title, Marston will now be looking to a possible world title fight in early 2015.
The 7th and final match of the night saw Onder Ozgul 3-0, 1KO, take on Karel Horejsek 2-1, 2KO’s at light heavyweight, in another wild brawl over 4 rounds. Onder is the older brother of Siar Ozgul, and like his younger sibling, has an aggressive come- forward, brawling style. There were some good toe-to-toe exchanges in this match, and the action got closer in the last two rounds as Ozgul tired, and the plucky Horejsek continued to reply to all attacks with punches of his own. However, at the end of 4 rounds, Ozgul was a deserved winner by virtue of his higher work-rate and harder punches.
All in all, the show was an entertaining one with glimpses of fighters who could develop into much bigger attractions in time. Judging from the reaction of the crowd at the packed York Hall the night’s action was a success.