Craig Docherty vs Kpakpo Allotey???
Craig Docherty vs Kpakpo Allotey???
Fight tomorrow night, does anyone know anything about it? I can't imagine there are too many people that will have seen Allotey fight as all his fights have been in Ghana but how good is Docherty?
Re: Craig Docherty vs Kpakpo Allotey???
In the very week Jim Watt won the vacant WBC lightweight title 25 years ago at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Craig Docherty fights in the same legendary venue in defence of his Commonwealth super-featherweight title against Ghana's Kpakpo Allotey tomorrow night.RC wrote:Fight tomorrow night, does anyone know anything about it? I can't imagine there are too many people that will have seen Allotey fight as all his fights have been in Ghana but how good is Docherty?
Southpaw Watt, described by Pat Cowdell as "a brilliant thinking man's fighter", refused to lose in his world title appearances in Glasgow (he eventually lost his crown in London to the great Alexis Arguello), and fellow Glasweigan Docherty showed similar fortitude in the first defence of his Commonwealth title in November: a bloody, hard-earned points win over Ghana's Abdul Malik Jabir at the Bellahouston Leisure Centre in Glasgow.
Docherty won by four rounds on referee Ian John-Lewis' card (117-113), despite boxing virtually the entire 12 rounds with blood streaming from a cut over his left eye.
"It was the first punch he hit with me and it wasn't even a very good punch," said Docherty afterwards. "It just kind of slid off me.
"But I could feel the blood straight away, it was nipping my eye and I couldn't see very well.
"I had to keep dabbing it and I could hear my manager Tommy Gilmour shouting at me not to wipe it but I couldn't help myself because I couldn't see.
"So I had to dig deep."
Docherty survived a referee's inspection in the third round, stood his ground in a pulsating fourth, used trademark left hooks to the body to slow the African challenger in the middle rounds, and his superior boxing skills to protect the eye in the later rounds.
It was a fine, courageous win, just a week after Alex Arthur's crushing British title defeat at the hands of Michael Gomez in Edinburgh. Docherty restored Scottish pride. Even Billy Connolly took time to write to him acknowledging his bravery.
So the lanky Scot enters this one on the crest of a wave and fired-up for more. "He doesn't want to fight second-rate fighters," said Tommy Gilmour. "He wants to fight the very best and he's fighting all these tough men from Ghana."
Allotey, who fights out of the boxing hotbed of Accra, has won all his fights by stoppage or knockout, so looks a dangerman. His one loss came to Ben Ankrah in an ambitious challenge for the Ghanaian lightweight title last year, but it went the full 12 rounds.
Currently 10-1 (10), the Ghanaian is the reigning African super-featherweight champion, a title he won from Uganda's hapless Michael Kizza last April with a fifth-round knockout. Kizza, of course, flopped alarmingly against Docherty's big Scottish rival Alex Arthur last month (Arthur used Allotey for sparring for that fight).
Unlike Kizza, Allotey looks capable and determined, despite Arthur's claim he knocked out Allotey in sparring. The latter seemed more a response to Docherty's mentor Tommy Gilmour, who, rightly as it turned out, had ridiculed Kizza as Arthur's comeback opponent.
"I think that, like it or lump it, the number one contender for the British championship at this particular time is Craig Docherty," added Gilmour at the time.
He's probably right again. Docherty can reinforce his current reputation by wearing down Allotey with body shots and forcing a middle-round stoppage.