Jamie Conlan extended his undefeated record to 15-0 with a fourth-round stoppage of Argentina’s Adrian Dimas Garzon at the National Stadium in Dublin on Saturday night.
The Belfast super-flyweight, brother of amateur world champion Michael, made light work of his 39-year-old opponent in a warm-up fight ahead of an anticipated showdown with former world champion Paul Butler of England last night.
Watching from ringside, Michael Conlan claimed his brother never got out of second gear in the fight and it was an assessment the elder Conlan agreed with afterwards.
“I knew in the first 30 seconds what I needed to do to get him out of there, but I needed to work on a few wee different things and as you can see I wasn’t out of breath,” said Conlan, who is training out of Matthew Macklin’s Gym Marbella (MGM), co-promoters of the fight night along with Frank Warren.
After easing into the fight, catching Garzon with a nice short, sharp right hand early on in the second round, Conlan started punishing his opponent to the body in the third.
A gurning Garzon acted the pantomime villain throughout the bout, continuously clowning as a bemused Conlan smiled at his opponent’s bizarre antics.
After acting up one too many times, Garzon was put on the canvas properly in the fourth round as a short right hand from Conlan caught his opponent on the temple. Referee David Irvine administered a count and allowed the bout to go on for a few seconds after Garzon returned to his feet, but the official rightly stepped in at 1min 57sec of the fourth.
“I never usually let people like that get to me, I never usually laugh or play along,” said Conlan of his opponent’s antics. “I retained my concentration and I knew when I hurt him to the body that it was the beginning of the end for him,” added the 29-year-old.
In the co-headliner at a near sold-out National Stadium, Peter McDonagh claimed a 97-95 points win over Dean Byrne for the vacant Irish welterweight title.
Galway-born McDonagh and Dubliner Byrne delivered a competitive and entertaining slugfest, which veteran McDonagh managed to edge. Referee Mickey Vann had deducted a point from Byrne for a low blow in the ninth round.
Earlier, Ian Tims came out on top of another domestic duel as he recorded a 76-75 decision over Michael Sweeney in an eight-round cruiserweight contest.
In a rematch of their 2011 bout, which Tims also won, Sweeney managed to put the Dubliner down with a big right hand in the fourth round but the Mayo man tired towards the end of a close fight.
Former two-time Irish senior amateur champion Declan Geraghty won all six rounds of his super-featherweight fight against Reynaldo Cajina of Nicaragua, while Jamie Kavanagh, another decorated Irish amateur, stopped Hungarian Ozkar Fiko after seven rounds of their lightweight bout.
Lighweight Kavanagh is also known as 'The Nuisance' but his Romanian opponent Ozkar Fiko was a frustrating opponent, who was twice deducted points for holding.
Kavanagh eventually managed to drop Fiko in the seventh and though he beat the count, the referee had seen enough.
David Maguire outclassed Josef Kusmirek to win a first-round stoppage while England's Jamie Cox caught Ferenc Albert with a cracking right hook to also claim a first-round TKO.
'Big Sexy' Sean Turner knocked Gabor Farkas down three times in a minute to win on a first-round TKO.
