Another Great Weekend For The TRAD TKO, Seven Wins Out Of Eight

Just two weeks into the new season and the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym’s boxers are continuing the stunning form, which was started by a successful defense of English Light Middleweight title by Erick ‘The Eagle’ Ochieng, newly crowned Southern Area Champions in Ian Bailey and Danny ‘Cassius’ Connor, as well as great wins by rising stars Wadi ‘Machoman’ Camacho, Tom Baker and Charlie Hoy, the week previously.

Eight of the Warriors from the famous Canning Town fight factory were in action over the past weekend, with seven of them taking the spoils of victory and just one being on the wrong side of a rather close points decision, more about this a little later, as we start the rundown on Friday’s Frank Warren promoted ‘Three Kings’ event at York Hall.

First in action on the night was Gary Corcoran, against Billy Smith, the man young Gary fought on his debut in November last year. As before Gary plain outboxed Smith to secure a shutout 40-36 points victory.

Next up was popular Canning Town youngster Billy Morgan, taking on Youssef Al Hamidi in an eight by two minute round contest. Just as with gym mate Gary Corcoran young Billy stuck to the plan and boxed his way to an impressive shutout 80-72 points victory.

The next TRAD TKO based boxer to enter the ring was shooting Super Middleweight  star Frankie Buglioni, who destroyed late replacement Joe Rea in less than two rounds. Frankie delighted his massive following, by dominating from start to finish as well as sending the Irishman to the canvas no less than three times.

Having already secured two ‘against the odds’ titles the week previous, optimism was running high, in the TRAD TKO camp, when Peter McDonagh took on unbeaten Bradley Skeete for the British Masters Welterweight title.

Peter worked his socks off, against the bookies favourite, by the midway point Peter was well in front, and after nicking a few of the later rounds as well, and looked destined to take the win.

However the man that makes the decision, referee Ken Curtis see the fight in favour of the ‘home’ fighter, denying the amiable Irishman his fourth title by a misleading 95-97 points margin.

Next up it was the big one, Commonwealth Middleweight Champion Billy Joe Saunders defended his crown against fellow Olympian and also unbeaten as a pro, Australia’s Jarrod Fletcher.

The Aussie had a distinct height and reach advantage over Billy Joe, but in all honesty that’s the only advantage Fletcher was to enjoy. Billy Joe literally ripped the antipodean challenger to pieces. It took Billy Joe just five minutes and fourty two seconds to dispatch Jarrod, much to the delight of his esteemed coaching duo, Jimmy and Mark Tibbs.

Rounding out the show was Ediz ‘Eddy’ Hussein, against Dan Carr. Eddy, the son of former Commonwealth Champion Mo Hussein, proved to be a chip of the old block as he out boxed the more experienced Carr to secure his third win since turning pro one year ago.

TRAD TKO supremo Johnny Eames gave his view of the bouts featuring the famous fight factory’s boxers.

“Another great weekend for the TRAD TKO fighters.

It started on Friday at York Hall with Gary Corcoran getting a great win over Billy Smith, then Billy Morgan got another really hard fought win over Youssef Al Hamidi.

Frankie Buglioni, Frankie ‘Puncher’ Buglioni pulled it out again against Joe Rea, got a great second round stoppage, much to the delight of his five hundred plus supporters there.

I think Peter McDonagh was very unlucky, against Bradley Skeete, a fight that I thought could have gone either way.

Most pundits thought it would have been a landslide for Bradley Skeete, but Peter really run him close, many people here thought he won, there wouldn’t have been any screams if Peter had got the nod. It certainly looked like Bradley’s corner was more in a panic than Peter’s.

Then what a great win for our Billy Joe Saunders, against the so called dangerous Jarrod Fletcher.

If he’s dangerous then I’d hate to see anyone that ain’t dangerous, I mean Billy made very, very good work of it, showed his class and showed he’s ready to move on.

Last on the night was Ediz Hussein, he sat gloved up from six o’clock but actually got in the ring at eleven. You know some of these things you have to experience it, but Eddy took it in his stride and pulled in a good performance against a messy Dan Carr, who didn’t really come to win, just came to make it messy.”

The following day Johnny Eames and Barry Smith headed south, to Portsmouth, where rising Light Heavyweght Joel McIntyre and new signing Tommy Watson were set to fight on the Jay Morris promoted ‘Punishment on the Pier’ event.

First of the TRAD TKO duo in the ring was Tommy Watson, who faced off against Arek Malek. As on his only previous pro outing young Tommy outboxed his opponent to secure a nice 40-36 points win.

Tony ‘Oakey Kokey’ Oakey protégé Joel McIntyre made short work of Lithuanian import Egidijus Kakstys, stopping him in proper style in the third stanza.

Johnny again gave his insight into the performances of the TRAD TKO fighters in action on the night.

“We move onto to Saturday at Portsmouth, where we had young Tommy Watson and Joel McIntyre boxing for us.

Both pulled in really good wins, Tommy with a great points win over Arek Malek, Arek has fought every top boy in Europe that you can think of, none of them stopped him and Tommy pulled out a great win.

Then Joel McIntyre pulled a great stoppage win out, after some great sparring with Billy Joe Saunders, which really bought Joel on and he pulled out a great third round stoppage.

There’s one thing I want to say here about the two promoters, Jay Morris and Kaz Evans, who are complete liberty takers. Young Tommy sold sixty five tickets, the agreement was a hundred, and they give him £50.

They kept eight hundred pounds, gave £1,100 to the opponent and gave Tommy £50, as far as I am concerned these people aren’t wanted in boxing and shouldn’t be in boxing.

You know it’s about swings and roundabouts, what the promoters need to remember is that without the fighters there are no shows, all right without the promoters there are no shows either, but we’re in it together, we’re not against each other, they should have at least given the kid two or three hundred quid, they didn’t even pay his petrol money, so in the future they will never get another fighter of mine on their shows.”

Sitting on a 13-1 record going into the third weekend of the new season, the TRAD TKO crew are hopeful that this coming weekend they secure a second clean sheet, as on Saturday Kevin Mitchell challenges Ricky Burns for his WBO World Lightweight crown in Glasgow.

On Sunday the TRAD TKO team will be out in force at the Miranda Carter promoted ‘Sunday Best’ event at York Hall, as there are no less than five of their youngsters on the bill.

Cruiserweight Menay ‘The Emperor’ Edwards takes on a closely matched Neil Dawson. Both Menay, who has had nine bouts, and Dawson, who has ten, have only had a single loss in their careers to date, so expect fireworks as these pair battle for supremacy.

Backing up the battle of the big boys will be TRAD TKO gym mates ‘Saint’ George Jupp, who takes on Shaun Tribble, nineteen year old Light Middleweight  Brett O’Callaghan faces the highly experienced Duncan Cottier and Light Welterweight Eren Arif makes his debut against the ubiquitous Johnny Greaves.

Last but not least former Amateur World #2 female Featherweight Areti Mastoudouka gets her third outing against a yet to be named opponent.

Finally Johnny gave his thoughts on the fights, featuring TRAD TKO boxers, this coming weekend.

“What a weekend coming up, it’s just getting busier and busier.

First of all we’ve got the big one on Saturday night, up in Glasgow, our Kevin Mitchell going up there to fight Ricky Burns, who is a very close friend of mine and the gym.

It’s hard for me to pick a favourite or a winner, because they’re both such close friends, I’m going to upset one them, but I do think Kevin can do it.

If Kevin’s good and Ricky’s good, I think a good Kevin beats a good Ricky, I’ve said it before, there’s not a lot in it, but what I’ve seen from Kevin he’s looking good.

If I was a betting man, which I’m not, I’d lean towards Kevin, but I wont be too surprised if it goes the other way either.

Then we’ve got a big day for the local boys, and girl, on Sunday at the Miranda Carter show at York Hall.

Georgie Jupp, Menay Edwards, Brett O’Callaghan, Eren Arif and our Areti Mastrodouka, all boxing on Sunday.

It’ll be a good afternoon’s boxing, hopefully we’ll make it six out of six again.

You know it’s getting better and better all the time.”

Tickets for Mitchell-Burns, Miranda Carter’s ‘Sunday Best’, as well as other boxing events in the Capital, are available on-line at www.tkoboxoffice.com or in person from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Gillian House, Stephenson Street, Canning Town, London E16 4SA.

Peter McDonagh: I’ll Take Skeete Places He’s Never Been And Become A Three Weight Champion

Former three time, two weight Southern Area Champion Peter ‘Connemara Kid’ McDonagh is quietly confident that he will add a fourth title, at a third weight, to his collection this coming Friday, when he takes on unbeaten rising star Bradley Skeete for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight crown, at the Frank Warren promoted ‘Three Lions’ show at York Hall in Bethnal Green.

McDonagh has an established Championship record going right back to the mid-noughties, having won the Southern Area Lightweight title back in 2004 with a close points victory over Jon Honney before going on to secure the Irish Lightweight Crown, with a sensational sixth round stoppage of Michael Gomez, two years later. 

In 2008 McDonagh vacated the Irish crown to unsuccessfully challenge Italian Giuseppe Lauri for his European Union Light Welterweight crown, before out boxing Lee ‘Lights Out’ Purdy to secure his second Southern Area title, this time the Light Welterweight version.

The following year McDonagh unsuccessfully Lenny Daws for the vacant English Light Welterweight title, then shortly after once again facing old foe Lee Purdy, this time for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight title. This time it was Purdy that came away victorious, and at the same time preventing McDonagh from making history by becoming a three weight Champion.

in 2010 McDonagh once again stepped onto the International stage to unsuccessfully challenge France’s Yvan Mendy for the vacant World Boxing Federation Intercontinental Light Welterweight title.

It wouldn’t be until 2011 before the Connemara Kid was back in Championship action, when he unsuccessfully defended his Southern Area Light Welter strap against Darren ‘Mr R&B’ Hamilton

Later in the year Peter took part in the highly successful Prizefighter series, only to draw eventual tournament victor Yassine El Maachi in the quarterfinal.

With just the three outings so far in 2012, won one and lost two, McDonagh is clearly the underdog going into Friday’s fight. However the ever likable Irishman feels that the underdog label may be doing him a big favour, when he spoke briefly following a training session at the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym in Canning Town.

“It’s a very good fight for me, it’s gonna be a tough one, but I love ‘em tough and if I can pull it off I’ll become a three weight Southern Area Champion, which is big in itself.

I’ve had the belt at Lightweight, Light Welterweight and now get a second chance to add the Welterweight belt.

I don’t know if anyone has done that before, but it’s a big opportunity for me and I feel I’m in there with a good chance of making history.

Bradley Skeete’s a good fighter, he’s unbeaten but he’s not been there before, I have and I think that could be the difference.

I’ve had plenty of hard ten and twelve round fights in my career and I’m the upset kid you know and come Friday I’ll take Bradley to places he’s never been to before.

Training here at the TRAD TKO has been great as ever, been getting plenty of great sparring with Jimmy and Mark’s (Tibbs) boys, had some sparring with Kevin (Mitchell) as he prepares for his big fight against  Ricky (Burns) the week after mine and some of their other boys as well as some sessions with Johnny’s (Eames) boys.

Here at the TRAD TKO we have just had a really successful weekend, with Charlie (Hoy), Tom (Baker), Wadi (Camacho) winning their fights, as well as Ian (Bailey) and Danny (Connor) both coming in as underdogs to capture Southern Area titles and Erick (Ochieng) retaining his English title in style.

Now I’ve just got to focus on the 14th September, if I can do a good job on Bradley Skeete then I’ll bring another title back to the gym and  hopefully then I’ll get a British title fight.

I’ve been a pro for eleven years and you know, I think this is my opportunity to go for it and come the 14th September that’s just what I’m gonna do, I’m going for it.”

Peter McDonagh versus Bradley Skeete, for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight title, is the main support bout for TRAD TKO’s Billy Joe Saunders, as he defends his Commonwealth Middleweight Crown against Jarrod Fletcher, at the Frank Warren Promoted ‘Three Lions’ event at York Hall in Bethnal Green on Friday 14th September.

Supporting the two title fights are no less than four further unbeaten boxers from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Frankie Buglioni, Gary Corcoran, Billy Morgan and Ediz Hussein, who are joined by Mitchell Smith and Steve O’Meara, all against yet to be named opponents.

Tickets, priced £40 (Standard seated) and £60 (Ringside) for the Frank Warren promoted Three Lions at York Hall on Friday the 14th of September 2012 are available on-line at www.tkoboxoffice.com or in person from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Gillian House, Stephenson Street, Canning Town, London E16 4SA.

Six Wins Out Of Six For TRAD TKO, Plus Two New Champions

The new season has started with a bang for the fighters from the famous TRAD TKO Boxing Gym in Canning Town. Besides their fighters winning all six bouts two of the young guns also secured Championship titles.

The weekend got off to a first class start, at the BoxNation broadcast Francis and George Warren’s Queensberry promotions ‘BoxAcademy’ at York Hall on Friday. First on the card was Mark Tibbs trained Super Flyweight
Charlie Hoy who out pointed Anwar Alfadli by a 40-37 points margin. This was followed up with a great points win for another Mark Tibbs trained young gun, when Middleweight Tom Bake secured his third win, by a 40-36 points margin over Joe Walsh.

The final TRAD TKO fighter, Johnny Eames trained Ian Bailey, came in as the clear bookies underdog in the battle for the Southern Area Featherweight title, against previously unbeaten Lewis Pettitt.

One thing that you can be sure of is that don’t ever right off a TRAD TKO fighter, especially not a battler such as young Ian.

The first four or five rounds almost certainly went the way of Pettitt but from then on it was Bailey all the way. The diminutive battler stepped up a gear, dominating the action right through to the two minute, twenty-five second point of the ninth round, when referee Bob Williams stepped in to save Pettitt further punishment.

TRAD TKO supremo and if there’s any justice in this World a future Hall of Famer, Johnny Eames gave his view of the night’s performance. “Yeah, what a great weekend for the TRAD TKO gym and all it’s fighters, whether they
are trained by myself, or Jimmy Tibbs, Mark Tibbs, Bryan Lawrence, Barry Smith, Alec Wilkey, Derek Grainger or Mo Hussain, they’re all out of the same camp.

What a great start to the season for us all, it all started on Friday evening at York Hall at the Queensberry show, promoted by Francis and George Warren.

A great start to the night for the TRAD TKO Gym trained fighters, with Charlie Hoy, a great win for him, looked really good in doing it, I thought he was going to stop the kid at one time, but he didn’t, instead winning it clearly on points.

Young Tom Baker was next, another great win, fantastic win, he boxed really well.

Then of course for me, the performance of the whole weekend, out of all the boys, was young Ian Bailey, who clearly wasn’t given a chance, by anybody, to beat young Lewis Pettitt.

But what we do good up here is upset the form book, and we did it again. Ian Bailey pulled his nuts out and broke Lewis Pettitt’s heart. In the end Lewis just run out of ideas, he just didn’t know what to do, other than get backed up onto the ropes.

Young Ian was like a prowling dog, for want of a better word, young Ian, he was waiting for his moment and that moment finally arrived in the ninth round and boy did he go to work. Young Lewis just didn’t have an answer, but I don’t want to take anything away from Lewis Pettitt as he put in a fantastic performance  and rightly so the two boys got the extra thousand pound each for the best fight of the night.

I can’t say, I can’t put into words, how pleased I am for young Ian Bailey. He’s been all around the country, fighting all the top prospects at four of five days notice. Some of them he should have got the decision, he never did.

We don’t cry over spilt milk here, Ian just gets on with it and comes back to the gym and just carries on. He so deserves to be a champion, hopefully his career turns the corner now.

I’ve already had to very good offers for him to fight, but in my opinion it’s a little bit too soon, after a fight like that, but promoters please keep asking as Ian will fight your boys, he’ll fight anybody at Super Bantam or Featherweight, he don’t care.”

With a nice little cache of three fights, three wins, plus a Southern Area strap, the TRAD TKO crew then headed across town to Alexandra Palace where three more of their young guns were ready for action at Eddie Hearn’s
Matchroom Sport promoted ‘London Calling’ event on Saturday night.

First of the youngsters in action on Saturday was the Bryan Lawrence managed and trained rising Cruiserweight star Wadi ‘Machoman’ Camacho, against fellow unbeaten prospect Andy Ingram.

Camacho, who bears an uncanny resemblance to David Haye, showcased his fully stocked arsenal as he tore the Long Eaton based visitor to pieces, until the referee stepped in at the two minute and forty one second mark,
of the second round, to save Ingram from further punishment.

Four up and two to go, the big one, with sensational Erick ‘The Eagle’ Ochieng defending his English Light Middleweight Crown, against super tough Ryan Toms.

To describe Ochieng’s performance as awesome is an understatement, Toms has a fearsome knockout reputation, yet it was the 25 year old from Stoke Newington that was busy inflicting serious damage to his opponent, so much so that the highly durable Toms challenge was bought to an end at the two minute and thirty seven second mark of the fifth round.

After this performance it is clear that ‘The Eagle’ is ready to fly to a higher level, so expect a British or Commonwealth title challenge in the very near future.

The final fight of the night see the Alec Wilkey trained Danny Connor, who like Ian Bailey the night before came in as clear underdog in his challenge to unbeaten Chris Evangelou. Just as with Bailey, Connor wasn’t fazed by his underdog status one iota.

Each time Evangelou came at him with a single of double handed attack, Connor responded with an equally vicious six, seven or eight strong flurry of punches to push his unbeaten opponent back.

After ten scintillatingly close rounds, the smart money seemed to favour a win for the Matchroom Sport house fighter Evangelou, but that was not to be as when referee Ken Curtis’ scorecard was read out, it showed a tidy
98-94 points victory  in favour of Connor.

The straight talking Johnny Eames gave his view on the Saturday show, as well as the comments made by the Sky Sports’ commentary team during the broadcast of the Connor-Evangelou bout.

“Ok, we get on to Saturday night, the big, big Matchroom show with top of the bill Tony Bellew.

First up was Bryan Lawrence trained Wadi Camacho, going in against an unbeaten fighter, someone had to lose their ‘O’, it wasn’t Wadi as he done a great job, Yeah Buddy stopped him.

We then had our second title up from the gym, which was Erick ‘The Eagle’ Ochieng who was fighting Ryan Toms.

Ryan’s a proven warrior, he can punch a little bit, but Erick overcome the early pressure and pulled a win off in the fifth with a great body shot. I’m sure Ryan’s got really sore ribs this morning, I thought that was a fantastic body shot.

Finally there was our Danny Connor, who again was against an unbeaten fighter in Chris Evangelou.

There's been a big thing being made about Evangelou and him training in Mayweather’s gym, spending loads of money training in Vegas and that.

It goes to show you that the TRAD TKO gym is better than training in Vegas. There was only one winner and that was Danny Connor. I’m not taking anything away from Chris, but in future save your dad’s money and come and
train with us.

On a similar vane, what on earth were the Sky pundits watching I just haven’t got a clue, it wasn’t the fight we were watching that’s for sure.

You can’t win a round with just four or five big hooks when the other kids hitting you twelve or fourteen or fifteen times. I think the computer scoring was wrong too, on punches landed as that was showing it as pretty close as well.

For me these pundits have got to stop getting on the back of the ticket selling house fighter. To me I see the fight how it is Danny clearly won the fight. There’s talk of a rematch, well if I have anything to do with it there wont be a rematch right away as I feel Danny deserves to enjoy his title and why should he be thrown straight back into something where he is going to get robbed. Danny is the Champion and it’s his call.”

Now, I know said six out of six, plus two new titles for the TRAD TKO crew, but three and half thousand miles away, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey another TRAD TKO associated fighter, former two time
IBF Cruiserweight Champion of the World Steve ‘USS’ Cunningham made his maiden outing in the Heavyweight division, against Jason Gavern at the Kathy Duva Main Events promoted event on Saturday night.

Cunningham came through with flying colours, winning every round, to earn an almost shutout 100-90 (twice) & 99-90 points decision.

Also on the card was Cunningham’s old foe Tomasz Adamek, hopefully a rematch of their ‘2008 ‘Fight of the Year’ nominated battle may finally happen, albeit at Heavyweight.

Perhaps in the near future we could even see ‘USS’ Cunningham cruise into London, as  when David Haye moved to the heavyweight division the only major belt he didn’t have in his collection was the IBF version, which was
held by Cunningham. Maybe, just maybe in the near future we can finally see the greatest fight that never was - Cunningham versus Haye right here in the Capital.

As with the other fights Johnny gave his views on the Heavyweight debut of Steve Cunningham. “Rio (TRAD TKO publicist Gianluca Di Caro) terms Steve as a TRAD TKO Fighter because he’s sponsored by our sponsor through him, so we class him as one of our own.

Hopefully he’ll be coming to England soon and we’ll be really pleased to see him at the gym.

Steve Cunningham has just moved up to Heavyweight, had his first fight at the new weight, fought a geezer Jason Gavern, don’t know too much about Jason, but Steve pulled out a great win, great performance winning all ten
rounds on points and looking as sharp as he did as a Cruiserweight, so congratulations Steve Cunningham and we look forward to meeting you.”

Even after such a magnificent, and rewarding, weekend the TRAD TKO crew can’t rest on their laurels as there are no less than nine of their fighters in action next weekend also.

The busy weekend starts on Friday at York Hall, where probably the best British boxer around at this time, Billy Joe Saunders defends his Commonwealth Middleweight crown for the second time, against tough unbeaten Aussie knockout artist Jarrod Fletcher.

Main support for Billy Joe comes from fellow TRAD TKO gym mate Peter McDonagh, who takes on Bradley Skeete for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight title.

It doesn’t end there as also on the Frank Warren promoted  ‘Three Kings’ event are a brace of TRAD TKO unbeaten young guns - Frankie Buglioni, Billy Morgan, Gary Corcoran and Ediz Hussein.

The very next day some of the TRAD TKO crew return to York Hall, when Eddie Corcoran challenges Kris Agyei Dua for the vacant Southern Area Light Middleweight title at the Olivia Goodwin Main Events promoted
‘London’s Calling’ event.

The reason I said some is because others will be heading down to Portsmouth, where exciting Light Heavyweight prospect Joel McIntyre and new boy Tommy Watson are in action at the Jay Morris promoted ‘Punishment
On The Pier’ event.


Tickets for all this weekend’s  events above, plus Mitchell-Burns and other boxing events, are available on-line at www.tkoboxoffice.com or in person from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Gillian House, Stephenson Street,
Canning Town, London E16 4SA.