By Elliot Foster
Tyrone McKenna picked up his first title as a professional.
The classy southpaw, 26, is now the Celtic super-lightweight champion after defeating Sean Creagh by retirement, exclusively live on BoxNation.
There was plenty of dislike between the pair in the build-up to this clash, which came at the Titanic Exhibition Centre, as part of the undercard to a bill headlined by Belfast trio Paddy Barnes, Jamie Conlan and Marco McCullough, but that lit the blue touch paper and made for a very entertaining scrap between two game fighters who put it all on the line.
But as the dust settled and the grudge match status subsided, it was McKenna who was the superior man, showcasing his skills with relative ease and putting together flashy combinations.
To his credit, Creagh had spells of success during the contest but it was his foe who was handed the victory after the corner of the man who is now 4-1 (2 KOs) pulled him out, seeing that he didn’t have an answer to the clinic put on by McKenna.
The conclusion was reached at the end of the fifth, leaving the unbeaten McKenna, who has boxed three times this year and is now 11-0-1 (4 KOs), victorious.
Phil Sutcliffe Jr. and Chris Jenkins produced something of a sensational display for the watching ringside crowd.
It was originally thought that the Celtic Warrior super-lightweight belt would be at stake, with the winner taking home the belt, but the fight turned out to be a non-title 10-round clash.
It didn’t need a belt on the line in the end, with both using their records and the fact they didn’t fancy taking a loss as their motivation.
Sutcliffe Jr. knocked down Jenkins in the opener and it was a war of attrition from that moment until the end of the contest, but the referee scored it much wider than the consensus after handing in a tally of 98 points to 93.
Jenkins slips to 16-2-1 (8 KOs) in defeat, while the victorious Sutcliffe Jr. moves on to 12-1 with seven early.
Elsewhere, James Tennyson and Declan Geraghty set up a showdown for the vacant Irish super-featherweight title with victories on the undercard.
Tennyson (now 17-2, 14 KOs) went into this fight on the back of defeat at the hands of Ryan Walsh for the British title back in April and outpointed Rafael Castillo over four rounds, getting the victory by 40 points to 36, while Geraghty –– who was last in action in Glasgow on October 1 –– improved his ledger to 14-1 (4 KOs) with an early ending of Khvicha Gigolashvili, 21, of Georgia, with a 33-second one-round blowout.
Their clash is expected take place at Dublin’s National Stadium on December 3, a bill which is promoted by Frank Stacey and topped by Linda Laura Lecca’s WBA female super-flyweight world title defence against Christina McMahon, but official confirmation of said clash has yet to be received.
Meanwhile, Sean Turner remains unbeaten after outpointing former David Price foe Ivica Perkovic over six rounds, with the referee scoring the clash 60-54 in favour of the Dublin heavyweight.
And Gary Sweeney was explosive in the opening fight of the night as he extended his cruiserweight ledger to 3-0 (3 KOs) with a 91-second stoppage of Jarek Prusak (now 8-2, 8 KOs) of Poland.
