By Seth Green: Light middleweight contender Jamie Moore (31-3, 22 KOs) defeated Michelle Piccirillo (50-5-1, 29 KOs) in a 3rd round stoppage in a scheduled 12-round bout for the vacant EBU light middleweight title tonight at the Robin Park Centre, Wigan, Lancashire.
Moore,30, dropped Piccirillo three times in the fight – two times in the 2nd and one more time in the 3rd with a left to the body, sending Piccirillo to the canvas for the final time. Piccirillo spit out his mouthpiece and grabbed the top ropes with both hands while on the canvas, trying to get oxygen and recover from the big left hand. The fight was then stopped by referee Robin Dolpierre at 2:15 of the round.
Piccirillo, 39, was never in the fight due to his lack of power which prevented him from being able to mix it up with Moore. Without any power shots to fall back, Piccirillo futilely attempted to keep Moore off of him with jabs alone. It didn’t work. Moore ducked under most of Piccirillo’s jabs and once inside he hammered him with hard left hooks and rights to the head. In the 1st round, Moore hurt Piccirillo with a hard left to the body in the last seconds of the round causing Piccirillo to retreat backwards in pain.
In the 2nd round, Moore landed a cuffing right hand to the back of Piccirillo’s head causing him to go down. At the same time that he threw the punch, Moore’s feet got tangled with Piccirillo’s, both the cuffing shot and the tangle of feet caused the knockdown. The referee, however, totally missed it and mistakenly ruled it a knockdown when it shouldn’t have been. Late in the 2nd round, Moore hurt Piccirillo with a left hook to the head, and immediately poured in another left and then a right to drop Piccirillo to the canvas.
In the 3rd, Piccirillo seemed to get his feet under him and fight much better, using his jab to nail Moore on the outside. However, a minute into the round Moore staggered Piccirillo with a left hook to the jaw. A short while later, Moore nailed Piccirillo with a left to the body that caused Piccirillo to turn around and walk a couple of steps and go down on his knees in the corner, spitting out his mouthpiece at the same time. The fight was then stopped by the referee.
In other action, former 2008 Irish Olympian Darren Sutherland (2-0, 2 KOs) obliterated his overmatched opponent Siarhei Navarka in the 3rd round of a scheduled six round super middleweight bout with a series of power shots. Sutherland, 26, battered Nevarka, 29, throughout, hammering him with hard left hooks and right hands to the head. In the 3rd round, with Navarka taking nonstop punishment, referee Phil Edwards stepped in and halted the fight at 0:26 of the round.
Sutherland threw mostly single shots in the first two rounds of the fight, but in the 3rd, Sutherland began unloading on Navarka with powerful combinations, hurting him. The referee then stepped in and halted the slaughter. Sutherland looked extraordinary throughout the fight, landing hard shots that would have caused most super middleweights a lot of problems.