HBO’s undercard for the upcoming Billy Joe Saunders WBO middleweight title defense on the road against David Lemieux brought what might be considered a pair of upsets. Spike O’Sullivan wore down and stopped Antoine Douglas in the co-main event while Yves Ulysse Jr also easily outboxed Cletus Seldin in the opener.
“Spike” O’Sullivan (27-2, 19 KOs) surprised me by landing quite a bit in a very close opening round with heavily favored once beaten prospect Antoine Douglas (22-2, 16 KOs). There were 30 second stretches where Douglas was able to control the Irishman and catch him coming in, but O’Sullivan got his shots in too even if he didn’t win the round. I thought Spike did even better in the second round after landing a series of great right hands, winning it on my card despite the good work Douglas did back. It was clear at this point that we were in for a really good fight.
Rounds three and four brought similar exciting action. I thought Douglas was narrowly edging the rounds on landing more good shots, but that he was taking the shots notably worse than O’Sullivan. His face was quite bruised up entering the fifth and I was starting to have flashbacks to the Khurtsidze fight stylistically. For the first time, O’Sullivan started to pile it on in the fifth without taking as much back from Douglas.
Antoine Douglas has what I think of as Andre Berto syndrome. He looks like an excellent athlete. He has coordinated hands with some speed and reasonably power and he is capable of brilliant, flashy, and impactful combinations. Yet, he doesn’t have a whole lot of skill, especially with his legs. Much like Berto and even someone like Adrien Broner, the great hands are meaningless when the fighter is unable to put himself in position to use them.
The sixth round started to become a beating in its first minute. Douglas was still trying and got a few good shots in, but the O’Sullivan right hand just kept landing. The Virginian did close the round strong, however. It didn’t matter though. A huge left hand from Spike O’Sullivan along the ropes badly hurt Antoine Douglas and an extended combination put him out at the start of the seventh. It was a pretty brutal finish. Douglas with his tremendous heart rose, but thankfully the referee did not let him continue. This was a huge, huge win for Spike O’Sullivan.
Yves Ulysse Jr (14-1, 9 KOs) had a great first round to open the broadcast against “The Hebrew Hammer” Cletus Seldin (21-1, 17 KOs). He ripped him pretty quickly into the round and then followed it a minute or so later with a big right hand that put him down. Seldin spent the rest of the round clowning and trying to force the Quebec native to engage with him out of a sense of male pride as he couldn’t figure out how to cut the ring off. Seldin was dropped even harder a bit into the second round and then quickly hurt again on another right hand that nearly dropped him.
I noted in the preview that I thought Ulysse would have an easy time with Seldin and my words proved me right, but honestly this was even more dramatic than I thought. The Canadian prospect basically dropped Seldin whenever he wanted to, doing it again in the third round. This brought a warning from the referee that it would be the last time that he let the Montreal fighter go down.
He didn’t put him down again, however. Ulysse was content moving and keeping Seldin at bay in the middle rounds to the increasing dismay of his restless local crowd. His corner got on him a bit before the eighth for the crowd reaction, however, and he did step it up to put a slow beating on Seldin over the last three rounds. Ulysse pushed for the knockout pretty hard in the tenth and maybe got himself another 10-8 round without a knockdown, but The Hebrew Hammered survived to lose the shutout decision.
