Isaac Chamberlain vs. Dilan Prašović & Aaron Noel McKenna vs. Carlos Jesús Gallego Montijo RBR

Aaron Noel McKenna vs. Carlos Jesús Gallego Montijo, 8 rounds @ middleweight

 

(they are into round two, actually - so I'm going to be a round or two behind the whole time; hopefully don't get spoilt if there's a KO)

 

Kudos to Irish-Boxing.com for the brilliant clutch heads up there.

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Round 1

McKenna is dominating with jabs sloping down into the face of his shorter opponent, followed by disrespectuflly wide hooks on the body and teardrop rights from above. Gallego is more or less a sitting duck for whatever McKenna feels like throwing at him. Target practice, although so far no major signs of hurt even when hit flush multiple times in a row, bespeaking a strong chin for the Mexican or lack of power for the Irish lad from County Monaghan.

10-9 McKenna

 

Round 2

McKenna is piercing the guard with a 1-2-3, utterly shattering it despite Gallego's best efforts to hold both arms firmly in place. McKenna then getting bored with stamping his knuckles into Gallego's mush and starts whipping hooks into his midsection. A few meandering wayward overhands by Gallego in the pocket, grazing if anything, while McKenna bops him atop the head with a fist, then uses the other to nudge him into position while circling him and converting suddenly to an uppercut with the same hand, scoring cleanly. All one-way traffic here.

10-9 McKenna

20-18 McKenna

 

Gallego's nickname being "El Ruso" and his ginger hair (a`la Canelo) and features suggest aught than mestizo ancestry.

In fact, you wouldn't guess he was Mexican by looking at him whatsoever.

 

Round 3

McKenna is trouncing Gallego with every shot in the book, landing as he pleases. McKenna putting it all together experimentally in different sequences, as Gallego struggles to find space to get off a single counter here and there, mostly smothered or punching underneath McKenna's outstretched arms mid-flight. Good mix of head and body punches from McKenna. Gallego with the odd desperate hail Mary left hook, spinning himself nearly into a faceplant with just such a swing at the bell.

10-9 McKenna

30-27 McKenna

 

Oh dear, Gallego has just the one professional defeat but it really isn't one you can explain away or rationalize with a "no shame in that"...

He was stopped in his debut by Luis Misael "El Toro" Muñoz Durán - whose record is 1-23. All twenty-three losses are by KO, meaning that literally every time Muñoz Durán has stepped in the ring in two dozen tries, EXCEPT when he stopped Gallego, he has himself been stopped. Ouch.

 

4-zip McKenna, just a bombardment. Gallego scrappy if nothing else, keeping his face caged in between his gloves and soaking it up - waiting for a spot to magically open for him to land a peach of a counter and get a come from behind KO (that is probably never coming, because of McKenna's height and kineticism)

 

Actually, since that horrible debut Gallego has only a single victory over a foe with a positive record. (Javier de Jesús Barajas Escarcega, who stood 3-0 when they met, and Gallego scraped by with a SD)

Shocking that he was even put in a Youth world title match-up tbh.

 

Politest thing I can say at this point is that it at least isn't as much a mismatch as the other McKenna bro had earlier with Ewbank.

50-45 McKenna (finally seemed to wobble Gallego with a short left upper-hook)

 

Ian John Lewis giving Gallego every chance to show some signs of life in the 6th. McKenna beginning to land several hard flush unanswered power shots at once, now.

Example sequence: right uppercut on the jaw, looping right on the cheekbone, left hook, right cross, left hook, right cross. All practically unobstructed, full mustard on all.

Getting grisly, expect to see a white towel flown in before long if not IJL taking matters into his own hands. The commentators themselves are wondering if such intervention may be about due.

60-54 McKenna, but this last really bordered on a 10-8.

 

Gallego will suddenly snap out of his turtle-shelled comatose state and throw a haymaker every 12-15 connects by McKenna, just enough to stave off Ian John Lewis from jumping in to save him. McKenna has gotten a bit arrogantly lackadaisical in his defense, meaning that when Gallego does fire he usually hits the bigger, younger man - but it does a fat lot of nothing and is soon followed by further squalls of voloume from the Irishman.

70-63 McKenna

 

Clean sweep for "The Silencer". Not a perfect looking prospect by any means - as @Robney points out, he took a lot of physical rough-housing liberties here with a smaller weaker stationary target which a different opponent (and ref) mightn't allow him to, and he also has that irksome and not very energy conservative amateur habit of barking with every sho he throws ...but he also showed a deep gas tank and plenty of creativity offensively. So, a fair bit on which to hang his hat and continue to improve.