March 19, 2000

Besides the consumption of corned beef & cabbage and an unlimited amount of Guinness devoured, St. Patrick's Day wouldn't satisfy me enough without witnessing a boxing event headlined by a couple of angry Irishman. After watching last week's Micky Ward-Shea Neary battle several times, I decided to travel to the Roseland Ballroom in Taunton, MA to watch two heavyweights get it on. Unfortunately after the 8 Round contest for the Massachusetts Heavyweight Title was finished, I still wasn't satisfied. In what was advertised as a thrilling and relatively easy fight for unbeaten Brian McDonough, of Stoughton, MA, Dan Conway of Dorchester, MA scored a lopsided unanimous decision over "Iron Brian" in front of a few hundred people last night.

McDonough entered last night's bout with a 6-0 record and 4 KO's before Conway, 225 used somewhat effective movement and a jab to keep McDonough at bay throughout the bout. The only actual fighting that had taken place between them occurred during their clinches as the two exchanged a number of rabbit punches. Though the rabbit punch fight was fairly even, Conway seemed to get the better of the match on the outside as McDonough, 240 pursued Conway to no avail. The win not only brought Conway the Massachusetts Championship Belt but his 11th win against two defeats.

The co-feature was originally to match cruiserweights, Darrel "Pee Wee" Flint against Tim Flamos of Brockton. Instead Flamos was matched with Jose Torres of Milford, CT and won a unanimous six-round decision. Torres landed the more hurting blows throughout, but threw only few. Most of the match took place on the ropes where Flamos, now 11-2 would press Torres and try to find openings. Torres made more gestures to the crowd to indicate that he wasn't hurt than elect to win the fight.

In the late 80's and through the 90's, a successful kickboxer joined the ranks of boxing and enjoyed similar success. Unfortunately for Troy Dorsey, the former IBF Featherweight Champion had a tendency to cut in nearly all of his bouts. As a result many of his bouts were stopped due to cuts incurred during his ferocious battles. Reigning U.S. pro lightweight champion, Christina Rondeau of Warwick, RI made her professional boxing debut only to have the fight declared a technical draw when she and her opponent, Dawn Wimer suffered severe lacerations above their eyes. The action started quickly as Rondeau would attempt to land leaping shots. During an exchange, the two combatant's heads collided drawing blood over Rondeau's right eye and Wimer's left eye. The action was stopped at 1:12 of the first round due to the one-inch gash over Rondeau's eye. As Dorsey's fights were exciting and sometimes abbreviated, so was Rondeau's first.

At one time, Danny Phippen, of Whitman, MA was being talked about as a potential opponent for worn out ring legend, Sugar Ray Leonard. That talk ended when Phippen didn't show up for his 19th bout and later served a jail sentence for drug charges. Four years later, Phippen who weighed in at 161 returned last night against Rick Zola, of Springfield, MA to earn his 19th victory by unanimous 4-round decision. Phippen who looked rusty and reasonably so remains unbeaten.

In other bouts, Ryan "Bubba" Conway of Dorchester, MA won his second bout in as many starts by decisioning Jimmy Combs of Vermont over four rounds. Marcus Davie, of Lewiston, ME scored the evening's only stoppage victory by halting Randy McGhee of Youngstown, OH.

Cappiello Promotions