Two years after their first meeting, former undisputed light welterweight champion Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall will fight tonight in the 12-round main event in their long-awaited rematch shown live on DAZN in the UK and around the world and exclusively live on ESPN+ in the U.S. – Main Event Ringwalks (approx.): 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT
Boxing News 24 will give updates and results of tonight’s action below.
Irish welterweight Paddy Donovan (14-0, 11 KOs) kept his unbeaten record intact, defeating veteran Lewis Ritson (23-4, 13 KOs) in the ninth round.
Donovan, 25, backed Ritson up against the ropes in the ninth and unloaded with an unanswered series of hard shots, causing referee Howard Foster to step in and stop the fight. The time of the stoppage was at 0:32 of the ninth.
It was a decent little scrap. Ritson was competitive throughout, landing a lot of hard shots at the easy to hit Donovan. The tide turned in the eighth round when Donovan started landing a lot of uppercuts and body thots and backing Ritson up.
It’s unclear what the big picture is for Donovan. He didn’t show the kind of talent tonight that suggests he’s capable of holding his own against top-tier contenders at 147. He looks more like a domestic-level fighter rather than someone who can be a gatekeeper someday.
Gary Cully trudged past Francesco Patera, whose early gusto quickly evaporated, leaving him sputtering like a deflated balloon. With a strategy reliant solely on his longer reach and a jab, Cully coaxed the judges into handing him an overly generous score of 98-92 and 96-94 (twice), making it seem as if height alone should dictate a win, while Patera, despite throwing more meaningful punches, faded into obscurity.
Giorgio Visioli continued his monotonous parade of knockouts, delivering nice body shot to Sergio Odabai. With this, Visioli maintained his pristine record, now gleaming with a 100% knockout rate.
George Liddard made his middleweight debut in a bout as brief and memorable as a commercial break, wiping out Graham McCormack in a single round. This encounter was so rapid and devoid of competition, it might as well have been mistaken for a light sparring session rather than a professional fight.
As for Emmanuel Buttigieg, he took to a leisurely pace, meticulously dismantling Anas Isarti over six rounds in a display that had all the excitement of a chess match
