Cool Neary responds with fourth round win

Shea Neary returned to his roots in spectacular style on Saturday night with a fourth round victory over Mike Griffith from Ohio in defence of his World Boxing Union light welterweight title.

Stitched on to that was an emphatic first round victory for the local National Stadium hero, Michael Carruth, in less than three minutes over the previously unbeaten Zoltan Szili from Hungary.

The National Stadium had standing room only towards the end of the night, recalling for many, the days when Fred Tiedt and Harry Perry filled it to the rafters.

An emotional few minutes came mid-way through the card when the tolling of the ringside bell 10 times, honoured the fact that Tiedt, an Olympic silver medallist in the Melbourne Olympics, had been buried earlier in the day.

It was given added poignancy by the fact the Fred's son Emile acted as referee in one of the bouts, having insisted that this would be what his father would have wanted.

Earlier there was some consternation when the bout involving Michael Carruth ended after two minutes 39 seconds of the first round. Many of Caruth's supporters had not reached the stadium when the bout went into the ring just after seven o'clock.

Three minutes later Carruth was being interviewed sitting on the ringside curtain and expressing the view that as a Dubliner and Ireland's only Olympic boxing champion his bout should have been given a better billing. He had a point. "I know that, if boxing is being televised live such as the Shea Neary fight, a programme has to be put together to suit television times but I think I am entitled to a higher place in the programme in the future," he said. In regard to the fight itself he admitted that his Hungarian opponent Zoltan Szili had caught him with an early right high on the nose which had opened a cut but after that he was never in trouble.

There was a change of opponent late in the week and it did not give me time to see any of the new guy's fight on video so I was completely in the dark and decided that the best way to approach the fight was to take control from the start. He caught me with a dig in the first minute and I decided that I had to take control. It is only the first time in 40 professional fights that he has been stopped so that must say something about his quality as a boxer," Carruth said.

"What I need now is another warm-up fight in September and a world title bout, here in Dublin or anywhere else, before Christmas."

The top fight of the night between Neary and Griffith brought the National Stadium alive as hundreds of Liverpool fans swayed and chanted, many of them bearing Irish tricolours in recognition of the fact that Neary was fighting under the title "Shamrock Express" and that his father was born in Dublin.

It was a memorable contest insofar as both boxers threw caution to the wind and more punches that one would expect to see in a 12-round bout.

A Neary victory always looked likely but Griffith was no easy opponent and, in the first two rounds, caught Neary several times with blows to the head and body.

Neary began to impose his superiority in the third and, as they slugged it out in the middle of the ring, the crowd roared their appreciation. In the fourth round, Neary stepped up the pace further and, after a flurry of activity in which Neary landed a barrage of punches, mostly to the head, the referee, Mickey Vann from Leeds, stopped the bout.

The other Irish results of the night saw Jim Rock score a convincing points victory over Kevin Thompson from Nottingham at middleweight. Willie Valentine beat Delroy Spencer from Birmingham over four rounds at super bantamweight and John O'Brien at middleweight secured a draw with Pedro Carragher from Knottingley over four rounds.