By Srithar Visuasam: Last Friday night saw two of Melbourne’s strong prospects Heath Ellis and Tim Hunt take home Victorian titles in their bouts at Malvern Town Hall, Melbourne, Australia.
In the main event, Heath Ellis (13-2-1, 6 KOs) returned to the ring after a six month break following his previous stoppage loss to Tasmanian Steve Maxwell. In his return fight, Ellis was campaigning at middleweight for the first time in his career with the bout for the vacant Victoria State middleweight title.
His opponent, Benny Horra (9-16-2, 5 KOs) was no easybeat and in the bout proved to be the case giving Ellis a rough and tough welcome to the middleweight division. The physicality of the contest was highlighted by the fouls each fighter committed with Ellis penalised 2 points for excessive holding in rounds 3 and 4 and Horra deducted 2 points in rounds 3 and 4 for rabbit punching.
The bout wasn’t the most glamourous affair but Ellis seemed to do enough during the eight round bout to receive the decision, with the judges scoring the bout 77-76, 79-73 and 77-75 in his favour. Ellis becomes the first fighter in Victorian boxing history to win state titles in four different divisions.
Tim Hunt (8-2, 3 KOs) overcame an always dangerous Aswin Cabuy via a unanimous points decision over 8 rounds to capture the Victoria State welterweight title. Hunt controlled the pace of the fight with his range and kept the larger framed Cabuy at bay, negating his ability to throw his power punches.
The scorecards read 80-71, 80-71 and 79-72 to Hunt, with Cabuy deducted a point in round 7 for excessive holding. The win sets the stage for Hunt to have a shot at the Australian title next year.
In the fight of the night, light heavyweights Dane Campbell (3-2, 2 KOs) and Callan Orchard (3-0, 1 KO), squared off in a rematch of their fight in June, which Orchard narrowly squeezed a majority decision victory.
The rematch looked set for a turn of the tables as Campbell knocked Orchard down in the first round with a heavy right hand. However, Campbell was unable to capitalise on the position and a hungry and determined Orchard used a heavy work rate to control the pace of the fight and outbox the more experienced Campbell.
By round 4, Orchard was dominating the fight and after a series of unanswered punches, the fight was waved off an Orchard the winner to a jubilant crew of supporters who cheered him on the whole fight.
In other fights, Jimmy James (10-2-1, 2 KOs) defeated Abner Llanasa (5-19-1, 3 KOs) via a six round unanimous decision, Marc Pante (2-0, 2 KOs) defeated Dale Burton (1-1) by fourth round stoppage, Ashley Caminiti (2-0) defeated Steven King (0-1-1) by close majority decision and Terry Tzouramanis (2-0-2, 1 KO) and Matthew Lytwynenko (1-0-2, 1 KO) fought a majority draw.
This event held by Peter Maniatis Promotions.