Frank Maloney Believes Jamie McDonnell Will Be a Star
By Terence Dooley
Frank Maloney has big plans for European bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell after watching his man retain his title at the Doncaster Dome. “We’re looking for new stars in 2011 and tonight we’ve found one,” says Maloney. “Jamie showed true Yorkshire grit tonight and can follow people like Paul ingle and Naseem Hamed [who both went from Yorkshire beginnings to world title success].”
Indeed, McDonnell, now 16-2-1 (7), had to make two trips to the scales in order to make the bantamweight limit ahead of his EBU title defence against Belgium’s Stephane Jamoye and the Doncaster favorite looked like he have paid a hard price for those final few lbs during the early rounds of the fight.
After a sluggish start, McDonnell tried to pick things up in the second but was rocked by a counter shot; he then had to hold frequently to survive the remainder of a torrid session. Jamoye has fought decent opposition during his two-year career; he exploded into life after hurting the champion before settling down for the rest of the fight.
Although he was not making full use of his reach advantage, Jamie showed that he is not short on heart during this tough bout, bucking up in the middle rounds and moving well enough to indicate that his legs were back to full strength.
The stage was set, could McDonnell continue to alternate boxing and banging in order to force the win, or would his opponent land one of those booming right hands to snatch the title?
McDonnell’s corner team, former pro Stefy Bull and Dave Hulley knew the answer, telling their man to “Jab and Jab” as they sought to impress on their boxer the importance of utilizing his boxing brain.
Their advice was spot-on, Jamoye looked uncomfortable by the seventh, complaining to the referee every time McDonnell took him out of his rhythm, which was increasingly often as the clocked ticked down. As Jamoye’s pace dipped, McDonnell was given the time and space needed to thread home left hooks to the body and rights to the head of the visiting fighter.
The roles had reversed by round eight, the champion was in the ascendency, landing a clean right hand to the cheek of Jamoye that knocked the challenger back, although he responded with his own straight right late prior to the bell.
A war broke out in the ninth, McDonnell sought to test Jamoye’s resolve only to find the Belgium equal to his attacks, prompting a sustained burst of action from both men punctuated by a solid left hook to the body from Stephane.
The stats had McDonnell out-landing his opponent 173-146 going into the penultimate round. Jamoye, however, cranked it up in the early moments, there was a sense of urgent necessity to the challenger’s work, it wasn’t always pretty but it forced McDonnell into pushing him off once too often for referee Robin Dolpierre’s liking, the third man decided to deduct a point from McDonnell’s card after he had used the elbow to gain leverage.
It almost proved to be a costly deduction. However, scores of 115-113, 114-113 and 114-114 saw McDonnell retain his belt via majority decision. “I felt like I didn’t really get going,” revealed McDonnell when speaking to Sky Sports. “I wasn’t worried, I enjoyed it. My fitness and my jab, keeping it long, paid off.”
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