Boxing: McAllister junior flourishes

Some excellent young talent from the north and North-east of Scotland showed that boxing is in rude good health in these parts.

Lee McAllister’s younger brother Matt scored his biggest success to date against Maltese boxer Daniel “Spider” Micalef, currently based in Lanarkshire, knocking him out in the third round of a scheduled four round contest. Heavier than his elder brother and fighting at welterweight, this former classy amateur showed that at 23, he has a bright future in the paid ranks.

There was a cagey start to the opening round as McAllister sized up his opponent, the local hero picking up some excellent scoring points with solid body punches.

Micalef kept to the centre of the ring in the second and McAllister was content to score with jabs and body punches, hurting the Maltese towards the end.

The man from St Paul’s Bay in Malta had come to fight, however, and that led him to attack carelessly right at the start of the third. McAllister feinted a left jab and Micalef drove forward right into the path of a following left hook.

Down he went and referee Kenny Pringle counted out Micalef who was clearly in no fit state to continue.

“That was the best punch of my professional career,” said McAllister, now unbeaten in three pro fights. “He came to win and was trying to knock my head off so I had to be patient.”

McAllister revealed that he had injured an arm in sparring two weeks ago: “But I wasn’t going to let down my friends and fans.

“I don’t know what will happen next, but I’ve told my manager Tommy Gilmour I don’t want to be fighting journeymen.”

Confident words from the younger McAllister, and he has a very useful stablemate in young Darren Traynor, the first Scot ever to win the amateur Golden Gloves tournament in the USA. Traynor scored a spectacular knockout in the second round of his super-featherweight bout against London-based Juris Varuskins.

Referee Vic Loughlin called it off after one minute five seconds of the second, with Varuskins flat out.

Rising heavyweight Gary Cornish from Inverness had a solid learning experience against tough Lithuanian Igoris Borucha.

At 16st 13lbs, the 6ft 7is Cornish outweighed his opponent by more than two stones, but seemed to have difficulty coping with the height difference and Boroucha’s head which drew blood from the Scot’s nose.

Nevertheless, Cornish was very professional in his work and referee Kenny Pringle scored all four rounds to Cornish.

Also down from Inverness was Andrew “Nessie” Young who had his opponent Ruslan Bitarov on the canvas twice in the third round before referee Kenny Pringle stopped the cruiserweight contest in Young’s favour after 1m 15 secs of the fourth.