‘Frog’ Holmes into Contender final as injury rules Davis out
Richard ‘Frog’ Holmes has made it to the final of the Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum Contender Series by fortuitous circumstances.
This was after his opponent Tsetsi ‘Lights Out’ Davis was declared unfit to continue after only one minute and 37 seconds of the first round of their eight-round semi-final encounter at the Chinese Benevolent Association auditorium on Wednesday night.
It was the second consecutive final for Holmes, who fought Kemahl Russell for the middleweight title last year.
The decision to award the fight to Holmes came following a clash of heads in the opening round, in which Davis received two cuts — a severe cut above the left eyebrow and another under the left eye. To prevent the boxer suffering further damage, ringside physician Dr Andre McDonald declared Davis unfit to continue.
McDonald indicated that it will take at least three months before Davis may be able to resume boxing and said the deep gash will require about 15 stitches to close the wound.
Under the rules of boxing set out by the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control (JBBC), the result of such a finish would have resulted in the bout declared a no contest and probably set aside to be continued at a later date.
“It is a tournament that someone has to move on to the next round, and under the prevailing circumstances, a decision has to be made for someone to move on. Richard Holmes was the last man standing and he will move on”, said JBBC general secretary Leroy Brown.
Meanwhile, Holmes appeared disappointed that he was not able to see the fight out.
“It was not the ending that I was looking forward to… we were preparing for the final and would have used this fight as a good build-up, but it did not work out that way. As you saw, I started to work the body with the jabs and by the third to the fourth round, I would have been cutting him down.
“What I will have to do now is to go back to the gym and continue the preparation process,” he said.
Holmes’ trainer Carl Grant said with his fighter in the final, a rigorous three weeks of training is on the cards.
“I am going to make the training really hard for him. There were certain aspects of the training that Holmes did not get to execute in the ring tonight (Wednesday) against Davis, so we just have to go back to the gym and continue the process for greater execution,” said Grant.
Holmes will face the winner of the other semi-final between Michael Gardner and DeMarcus ‘Chop Chop’ Corley.
