DEVON Moncriffe gave himself a fighting chance of pocketing $1,000,000 when he rose off the canvas to score a big unanimous points decision over challenger Richard Reittie in the second semi-final over eight rounds in the lucrative Wray & Nephew Contender boxing middleweight contest at the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) Auditorium on Wednesday night.

Moncriffe, the number one seed, will now face the number two seed and teammate Tsetsi Davis, who one week earlier hammered out a similar unanimous points decision over Ramel ‘Sub Zero’ Lewis to book his spot in the final at the National Indoor Sports Centre on June 26.

The final match of the 2013 series will be fought over 10 rounds with the winner pocketing $1 million along with the titles of Jamaica’s Ultimate Middleweight Boxer and the Wray & Nephew Contender.

The second-place finisher will receive $500,000 with third and fourth place finishers taking home $250,000 and $200,000, respectively.

The fight was not as blistering as the ‘Sub Zero’ Lewis/ Tsetsi Davis bomb fest, however, both Moncriffe and Reittie, who packs powerful wallops, demonstrated them by decking each other. Reittie was first to be knocked off balance with a powerful right from Moncriffe, but the Canadian came back with a powerful right of his own in the round to knock Moncriffe off his legs that gave him the edge in the first three rounds.

Notwithstanding, Moncriffe, from the third round onward, began to assert himself over Reittie, who was on his bicycle for the earlier rounds, but had begun to slow down his movements, and this presented Moncriffe with a more stationary target on which to bomb his way to victory.

The sixth round was the real turning point of the fight when Moncriffe came up big by flooring Reittie to his hunches, a position from which he never really recovered. Moncriffe then proceeded to take full control of proceedings, for had it not been for the good defensive skills of the vanquished, would have been out cold in the seventh from a blistering seventh round bombardment.

Reittie had all right to be disappointed with his performance: “I came here to win a fight and didn’t. That to me is a great cause for me to feel disappointed.

“I started as was planned to jab and move and it did work in the early rounds, but I will have to wait and have a look at the fight in its entirety before I can say for sure what happened between the third and final rounds before I can give a good reason why I lost the fight.”

Moncriffe, who was a losing finalist in the first edition, said that the knockdown did not do him any damage. “I just said to myself this boy cannot beat me tonight no matter what he comes up with. I trained too hard to go down to this youth. Me ah bad people an no fraid ah no one. 2013 me say is for Moncriffe. No easing up pon it.”

Moncriffe also said that he was aware that Reittie can box “so the only thing I had to do was watch his every move and every time him work, I just work after him and it worked wonders”.

Asked why he did not follow up at times when it appeared that he had Reittie in a spot of bother, Moncriffe replied: “I was working off instructions from my handlers and was sticking to the game plan by not pressuring myself to knock him out, but just work, step back and continue work again until me catch him.”