The Assassin strikes again in the Ballroom
Lee McAllister,The "Aberdeen Assassin", made his usual ear splitting entrance with the old dance floor literally bouncing while the Hungarian Istvan Nagy stood impervious to the eruption of noise round about him, calmly surveying the scene which I'm certain he won't have experienced in his career. The IBO International light welterweight belt was on the line at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen last night as McAllister returned to the ring after 13 months out but the boxing was only coming from one of the protagonists and that was local man Lee McAllister!
At the weigh in on the Friday conducted by yours truly, Lee McAllister checked in at 9st 13lbs 12 ozs while Istvan Nagy came in lighter at 9st 10lbs. Nagy's unorthodox style has some menace in it, as he's shown with 8 stoppages out of his 15 wins most of them early on. However, in this bout McAllister came out of the traps with controlled aggression and used his skills to keep the Hungarian on the back foot from the first bell, taking the centre of the ring and the fight to Nagy.
Referee Victor Loughlin had to issue the Magyar with a stern warning as early as the second round, for using his head in anything other than a thinking capacity. It is one way traffic from a boxing perspective with McAllister controlling the legal action and Nagy doing a passable impersonation of a street fighter in Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night. McAllister's short right hooks to Nagy's head are scoring as though magnetically drawn to his temple and this is causing him (Nagy) to become even more erratic.
Referee Victor Loughlin rules an accidental clash of heads in the third round as the cause of a large sliced cut above the Aberdonian's left eyebrow, but with the unflappable Benny King as cuts man in his corner, it is kept under control. The corner team under the aegis of Stevie McGuire snr use this as a spur to McAllister by telling him it is a bad one. The Assassin doesn't need to be spurred on and moves up a couple of gears to almost put the ragged Nagy away in the fifth, unfortunately the punch from his left is at the fullest extent of his range and although Nagy is off balance he doesn't fall.
The next round though did see the end of the bout, as again McAllister goes straight into overdrive and puts Nagy down for a count within 40 seconds of the bell for the sixth from which he got up by nine, only to have McAllister all over him like a rash. This time when the Hungarian went down, referee Loughlin dispensed with the count, as Nagy didn't know whether he was in New York or New Year. The stoppage timed at 1 minute 19 seconds of round six.
On the undercard the show opened with Dave Cowan (8st 10lb) from the Anstruther in the Kingdom of Fife having to work hard to get the decision over evergreen Delroy Spencer (8st 6lbs 12ozs). Cowan threw a lot but wily Spencer wasn't for sitting around to make a target, consequently Cowan's shots were falling short. Spencer has 126 bouts under his belt and it shows, whereas Cowan is a relative, but unbeaten, novice. The likeable Cowan will have learned more from this bout than his previous ones and there was no doubt he won it, but Delroy Spencer will feel he should have got more on the score card with referee Kenny Pringle scoring it 58-55 in favour of the Scot.
The return to boxing of George "Bad Boy" McIlroy (10st 5lbs 6ozs) of Stevenston in Ayrshire was something I was looking forward to and he demonstrated that only one bout in over three years hadn't blunted his skills too much. Admittedly his opponent Sid Razak (10st 7lbs 6ozs) didn't have too much in his armoury to trouble McIlroy, and in truth looked a bit lacking in enthusiasm throughout the bout, with only sporadic attacks of his own, which never troubled the Ayrshireman. Disconcertingly he was being hit regularly by the spear like jab of McIlroy and fortunately for Razak, McIlroy didn't follow them up with too many combinations. The points decision to the Ayrshireman was almost a foregone conclusion and speaking to him after the bout he didn't even look as though he'd been in a bout. 5th Razak got a share of the fifth on effort alone, but it begs the question as to whether his 64th bout should signal the end of the road for the Midlander.
The McAllister bandwagon rolls ever onward then with yet another belt to add to his household furniture, and I've seen his progress since he was my first bout as a referee when he was a mere 16 year old! He has improved dramatically over the years and only injury has blighted his career. The sands of time mean that he needs as fairer shake of the dice in terms of injuries (outside the ring) to accomplish his potential, and soon. 2011 will be a telling year for the Assassin.
