Eddie Hearn’s surprisingly successful prospect card headlined by Lawrence Okolie and Isaac Chamberlain is in the books. Unfortunately, the main event didn’t deliver on its well built up hype. Ted Cheeseman was the card’s big winner in the end with an excellent performance over a serious veteran in Carson Jones.
Lawrence Okolie (8-0, 6 KOs) got the win in the show’s main event. He also did really well building what initially looked like a niche prospect card into a real local event alongside Isaac Chamberlain (9-1, 4 KOs). Unfortunately, what he didn’t do was deliver in terms of in ring action. While the 2016 Olympian put Chamberlain down in the first on a good right hand and forced him to touch a glove down again in the sixth on the same shot, very little else happened in this fight. At least, nothing happened outside of a lot of holding. Both men were deducted a point for the infraction at different moments in the fight. Towards the end Isaac Chamberlain was trying to push the pace, but it wasn’t near enough. Styles just did not mesh here. Okolie won a wide decision in the end.
For many, 24 year old light heavyweight Joshua Buatsi (4-0, 3 KOs) is considered the crown jewel of Matchroom’s extremely deep pool of early stage prospects. I am not going to disagree. Here he was in action against once beaten local man Jordan Joseph (7-2-1, 2 KOs) in what could technically be considered the card’s co-main event slot. Buatsi is a fluid, powerful puncher that took no time at all to get going here. He couldn’t miss. The towel came in round two after a stiff right Buatsi hand had Joseph all sorts of wobbled.
The fight I was most looking forward to, well really the only fight I was looking forward to, was Ted Cheeseman’s (13-0, 8 KOs) notable step up against high level journeyman Carson Jones (40-13-3, 30 KOs). For the most part the fight delivered too, especially early. The first four or so rounds were highly competitive. Jones had a particularly strong second that made me think Cheeseman might be in over his head, but that was definitely not the case. Working behind his jab, the London man slowly began to dominate and control the fight in its second half on his way to picking up the decision. This was a really, really good win for an underrated prospect.
A trio of other Eddie Hearn prospects were in action as well. Featherweight Reece Bellotti (12-0, 11 KOs) scored a nice step up stoppage win over British level opponent Ben Jones (22-7-1, 10 KOs) while heavyweight Nick Webb (12-0, 10 KOs) and middleweight Felix Cash (8-0, 6 KOs) scored stoppage win over dramatically overmatched opponents.
