Olympic super-heavyweight bronze medal-winner Frazer Clarke moved to 4-0 as durable Argentinian Kevin Nicolas Espindola, who retired at the end of the fourth round with a damaged right hand on the Eubank-Smith bill in Manchester.
Espindola had gone the eight-round distance on a previous trip to the UK last summer against Solomon Dacres and his ambition was to go the full six rounds this time.
The Argentinian went backward from the opening bell, trying to wing in occasional big shots when Clarke opened up.
But Clarke clubbed away in a fight that got more and more one-sided as Espindola was clearly struggling to throw the right. At the end of the fourth round, referee Jamie Kirkpatrick accepted Espindola’s retirement.
“I felt it was a good performance,” Clarke said. “He said he had an arm injury but I was hitting him with some hard shots. He was a very tough man and dangerous at times, as you could see a couple of times when I lost concentration.
“I felt game as a badger in there, I was strong and ready to go.”
Promoter Ben Shalom said the plan was for Clarke to box for the British title within ten fights. “He is levels and levels above this, but he needs rounds, he needs to learn, and when he gets to those titles he will have all the rounds in the bank to go all the way.”
Huge heavyweight Matty Harris made short work of Jiri Surmaj, of the Czech Republic, who was stopped in just 74 seconds.
A big right from the 6ft 8in 23-year-old had Surmaj in trouble and, as Surmaj staggered away from another right hand, referee Darren Sarginson stopped it.
Harris is now 4-0, having stopped his last three in the first round.
Unbeaten cruiserweight Scott Forrest moved to 4-0 with a six-round decision over Belgium’s Amine Boucetta.
Forrest was totally dominant and started fast, pounding away at Boucetta, who mostly covered up on the ropes and only trying an occasional punch back.
The pace dropped from the third round, but when Boucetta opened up in the fifth, Forrest had more success as he landed heavily with the right. Referee Jamie Kirkpatrick scored it 60-54.
Liverpool lightweight Frankie Stringer got the evening underway with a 40-36 points win over Nicaraguan Christian Narvaez to move to 4-0.
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.
