In a masterclass performance, super featherweight contender Jono Carroll (18-1-1, 4 KOs) embarrassed former 122-lb champion Scott Quigg (35-3-2, 26 KOs) in totally schooling him in scoring an 11th round retirement stoppage on Saturday night in front of an excited crowd at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Quigg’s trainer did the merciful thing in throwing in the towel in the 11th round after he’d been hurt by a right-hand from Carroll. When Quigg saw the towel thrown into the ring, he didn’t look pleased.
Carroll too fast for Quigg
Quigg was doing a pretty fair job of dodging most of Carroll’s shots, but he wasn’t firing anything back. That’s obviously the reason why Quigg’s corner threw in the towel He was a sitting duck against the ropes, and there was still a lot of time left in the round. The time stoppage was at 2:14 of round 11.
Carroll looked so dominating with his superior hand and foot speed, that the 31-year-old Quigg never stood chance in there. By the halfway point in the fight, it was obvious that Quigg was going to need to have the contest stopped by his corner to save him taking needless punishment at the hands of the gleeful Carroll. The Irish fighter was smiling the whole time, even when he would get hit hard. It was as if Carroll just knew he was going to win, and there was nothing Quigg could do about it.
Quigg, 5’8″, had a slight height advantage over the 5’7″ Carroll, but it wasn’t enough for him to gain an edge. The speed difference between them was too much for Quigg to have any chance. Carroll was blazing fast, and the way that he was able to move, land shots to Quigg’s body, and then nail him to the side, it was impressive to watch.
Quigg was outboxed by Carroll
It wasn’t just the superior speed of Carroll that played a part in his victory tonight. His boxing skills were far better than Quigg, who looked one-dimensional throughout. We already knew that Quigg wasn’t a great boxer even earlier in his career when he competed at super bantamweight. He won his fights in that weight class based on his size and power advantage.
The former WBA 122-lb champion Quigg learned the hard way tonight that he doesn’t match-up against the best at super-featherweight. This was a similar situation as we saw in Quigg’s lopsided 12 round unanimous decision defeat at the hands of former WBO featherweight champion Oscar Valdez in March 2018.
Quigg was too slow, and his power wasn’t enough to get Valdez out of there. Although Quigg did brake Valdez’s jaw in the 5th round of that fight, he ended up getting out-boxed and badly beaten.
Carroll comments on his victory over Quigg:
“I was here when Scott beat Kiko Martinez. Scott was one of my idols and has been in fantastic fights. These feather fists have a little bit of power! We knew if we didn’t have power that Scott would walk through my shots and that wasn’t what we wanted.”
Hughie Fury stops Pavel Sour
Former heavyweight world title challenger Hughie Fury (24-3, 14 KOs) kept his career alive tonight with a third-round knockout over 37-year-old Pavel Sour (11-3, 6 KOs) in the co-feature bout on the Quigg vs. Carroll card.
With his sagging career on the line, the 25-year-old Fury dropped Sour twice to register a knockout in the third. Fury knocked Sour down with a right hand to the head late in round 2.
In the third, Fury once again landed a hard right to the head of Sour that dropped him for the second time in the contest. Although Sour looked fine after getting up, the referee stopped it anyway. Referee Steve Gray stopped it at 0:24 of round 3.
There were both good and bad to take away from this fight as far as Hughie goes. On the positive side, Hughie looked aggressive and more willing to let his hands go than he’d been in the majority of his past fights. He was throwing his right hand with mean intentions from the opening bell.
At the start of the fight, Hughie rushed across the ring and immediately threw a wild right hand that missed by a mile. Hughie was clearly trying to take Sour out with the first punch he threw, but he lacked the accuracy to land.
On the negative side, Hughie wasn’t accurate with his punches even though he had a stationary target in Sour. He was missing too much, and power didn’t look that great. Additionally, Fury’s hand speed was lacking. I wouldn’t call Hughie slow but didn’t show the same speed that one is accustomed to seeing from the world-class heavyweights.
Hughie’s promoter Hearn believes he can win world titles
“2020 is an important year,” said Hearn.”I believe he can challenge for, and win world titles. The Povetkin fight was ballsy but maybe not right. He is super young with a great team and there is plenty left in Hughie.On to a big fight in the summer.”
It’ll be fun to see what happens if Hearn throws Hughie into the deep end by pitting him against one of his top Matchroom Boxing heavyweights like Dillian Whyte and Michael Hunter. Hughie is young, but if he can’t cut it at the world level, then Hearn needs to keep him at the domestic level.
There’s no point in having Hughie continually matched against opposition that he has hope of beating. In Hughie’s three career defeats, he was beaten by Joseph Parker, Kubrat Pulev and Alexander Povetkin.