Robbie Davies Jr sparked some life into his career as he stopped Henry “Hank” Lundy in the second round at the M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, on the Benn-Algieri bill.
Davies’s career has often been one step forward, one back, but this was a very good night as he landed a huge right in the first that Lundy never recovered from.
After a scruffy opening, which saw both warned for punching on the back of the head, Lundy was badly rocked by a huge right hand as he lunged in near the end of the first round, which turned Lundy’s legs to jelly. Somehow he stayed on his feet until the end of the round, but the end was not long coming.
Lundy, 37, did not look right at the start of the second round, and while Davies, 35, took his time, when he did threw, he didn’t miss. After a decent left landed, a body shot wobbled Lundy again and he followed it up with a ramrod right that sent Lundy falling back threw the ropes and onto the ring apron. The American hauled his way back, but referee Marcus McDonnell waved it off at 1:23 as he just beat the count.
“It is very satisfying, Hank has been in with a lot of big names,” Davies said. “I don’t think it was the best version of Hank Lundy but I don’t think anyone has done that to him recently.
“I went a bit gung-ho in the first round, I caught him with a shot that I didn’t know had hurt him until it wobbled him. Literally the shot Shane [McGuigan, his trainer] told me to throw was the one that stopped him.
“I’ve had two back-to-back KOs and if Shane says so I am ready to go with some big names.”
Joe Cordina looks in need of a chance to test himself at the highest level after he allowed himself to get frustrated on the way to claiming a ten-round decision over Miko Khatchatryan on the Benn-Algieri bill in Liverpool.
At times Cordina, the former British and Commonwealth super-featherweight champion, looked very good as he walked his Belgian opponent down and landed sharp combinations.
But at other times he let the fight drift and seem to get disheartened by his inability to get Khatchatryan out of there.
The Welshman looked to have put all his injury problems behind him as he blew away Joshuah Hernandez inside a round in August and for five rounds his looked the part, walking Khatchatryan down and creating openings to land big rights.
The long the action went, though, the more Khatchatryan came into it. He landed a good right off the ropes in the sixth and, while the Belgian was hurt by a body shot in the seventh, he picked Cordina off in the either.
Still, Cordina finished well and while Pawel Kardyni’s 100-90 scorecard seem a bit generous, the 98-92 score given by John Latham and Jean-Robert Layne seemed about right. Cordina picked up a WBA “Continental” title for what that’s worth (he is No 12 in the WBA rankings), as he extended his unbeaten record to 14 fights.
Peter McGrail had far too much of everything Engel Gomez, who was picked apart and then stopped in impressive style in the second round. McGrail, who moved to 2-0, set a fast pace, used the jab well and caught the Nicaraguan clean just about every time he threw a southpaw left.
A series of hard lefts had Gomez tottering in the second round and he dropped Gomez flat on his back with an overhand left, referee Bob Williams stopping the fight at 2:18 without taking up the count.
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.
