Murphys Boxing: Mark DeLuca vs. James Williams & Gary O'Sullivan vs. Khiary Gray-Pitts RBR

Round 4

O'Sullivan is swooping in with uppercuts, both hands swung like pendulums and carrying him inside with their momentum. Gray-Pitts is leaning his upper body over an invisible clothesline, swaying, dodging & slipping what he can and loading up on big can opener counters spinning around to center. O'Sullivan beginning to whip big hooks into the belt line, nearly doubling Gray-Pitts over and setting up right hands into the forehead that keep turning Gray-Pitts legs into jelly momentarily, but his recovery is quite remarkable.

10-9 O'Sullivan

39-37 O'Sullivan

 

Round 5

O'Sullivan is spamming the 1-2, landing a couple to answer the bell, then eating a counter uppercut that Gray-Pitts heavily loads up on in desperation, but O'Sullivan won't be denied. BIG stiff left jabs from O'Sullivan putting Gray-Pitts on ***** Street and right hands nearly splattering him across the canvas. Gray-Pitts somehow remaining erect but reacting horribly to even grazing jabs now, getting violently rocked, and then jolted and stiffened with every right hand. Gray-Pitts' left cheek is a gnarly mess of mincemeat. O'Sullivan now starts pouring on the body shots. One strays low - incidental - but Gray-Pitts takes advantage, milking all the recovery time he can get from the ref. Clock stopped with 57 seconds remaining in the 5th. The referee grants the customary 5 minute reprieve if Gray-Pitts needs it. He takes only half a minute. Time in. O'Sullivan rocks Gray-Pitts with a jab. Enormous windmill counters from Gray-Pitts, looking for a hail Mary. Giant left hook by O'Sullivan crashes into the beard of Gray-Pitts and swivels his neck around sharply. Gray-Pitts smiles and keeps bucking in, slamming his shoulder into O'Sullivan's belly, and infighting with him. Tough dude.

10-9 O'Sullivan

49-46 O'Sullivan

 

Who is this commentator?

"Spike is having fun, you can tell he can taste all the blood in his steak, and he loves it..."

 

Round 6

O'Sullivan is landing the left jab up top unimpeded and following up with a big right uppercut falling in; Gray-Pitts no longer having the mobility to avoid them. Gray-Pitts trapped on the ropes every few steps, and getting bombarded. Jab-jab-uppercut totally dialed in for O'Sullivan, can't miss with the combo. The face of Gray-Pitts is looking more and more gruesome. The ref steps in and quietly stops it. Gray-Pitts throws a tantrum, wanted to keep fighting.

TKO6!!

 

Crowd booing the stoppage, and it was admittedly an anticlimactic moment with Gray-Pitts still circling and throwing punches back, but still. He was getting massacred in there.

 

Besides if the ref is stopping it because of the cut (and that is his prerogative with or without his first consulting the ringside physician, which many fans don't seem to realize) it doesn't really matter what is happening at that particular moment that he stops it.

 

Spike's drop to 154lbs (or rather, his return - it was his division in his entire debut year, but for the last decade since he campaigned exclusively at MW and super middle) and seeming improvement there sort of reminds me of when Javier Maciel lost to Pirog at middleweight and then dropped to super welter and went on a beastly run of form domestically.

In both cases there was a scaling back of the level of competition, yes (from Pirog for Maciel, and from Lemieux/CEJ/BJS for Spike) but also they both just looked a lot more comfortable & effective at 154.