This past weekend saw a lot of major boxing cards from Texas to Japan, but Boston was also host to a number of fights featuring a pair of title challengers.
Murphy's Boxing held its 4th annual St. Patrick's Day Clash on March 16 at the House of Blues in Boston. In the main event, Mark DeLuca successfully retained his NABA junior middleweight title against Jimmy Williams.
DeLuca dominated the fight, outboxing the less experienced Williams and won every round on two of the three judges' scorecards. DeLuca won with scores of 100-90, 100-90 and 99-91 and is on a two-fight win streak. The 31-year-old DeLuca entered the fight ranked No. 14 by the WBA.
Also on the card was Gary "Spike" O'Sullivan, who has moved down to junior middleweight for the first time since the early portion of his career. O'Sullivan stopped Khiary Gray in the sixth round of their bout and will look to become a contender in that division. O'Sullivan has now won two straight fights since being knocked out by David Lemieux in a WBA middleweight title eliminator last September.
NABA light heavyweight champion Charles Foster continued his unbeaten start to his career with a ninth-round stoppage win over Mike Jimenez. Foster improves his record to 18-0 and maintains his standing in the WBA rankings at light heavyweight where he was ranked No. 10 at the time of the fight.
Heavyweight prospect Niall Kennedy won his second straight fight by quickly taking out former cruiserweight title challenger Michael Marrone in less than two minutes. Kennedy now sports a 13-0-1 record as a pro.
