Jamie Kavanagh VS Michael Clark - Clark takes another knockout but gives good resistance

The commentators for the evening were both men who've fairly recently rebounded from cancer scares in triumph, middleweight contender Danny Jacobs and veteran broadcaster Brian Custer. FS1's opening match was a lightweight contest between Irish propsect Jamie Kavanagh and the type of veteran opponent you'd expect to see him against in technically sound but 40-year-old Michael Clark (former opponent of Artur Grigorian, Vivian Harris and Mike Alvarado, among others). Both fighters have trained at Wild Card Gym. Brian Custer says that Kavanagh has sparred a number of times with Manny Pacquiao.

The first round started hot for the typical feel out round. Joel Diaz, Kavanagh's trainer warns him not to telegraph his punches before the second round begins. Kavanagh is mentioned to have recently split with Freddie Roach and picked up with Diaz. He is also mentioned to be fluent in Spanish, having lived in Spain. Both men landed big in the second and third. Round four started seeing some more tying up and blunting of the action but it's not a boo-inducer.

Fifth and final round: Jacobs says if he's noticing correctly, he thinks both fighters appear to be cut. Possible head clash? Mid-round, Kavanagh lands a big left hook after committing to more body work as requested by Diaz. Clark wipes at his eye, Kavanagh appears to land a hard low blow left hook that stops the action. Right now the fight's unraveling with Clark bothered by the cut above the right eye, the low blow, getting tagged with flush power punches by the significantly younger man and toward the end of the round Clark goes down from one of Kavanagh's sneaky lead right hands. Now, pretty much everything is against Clark with the young prospect. He seems perfectly steady upon getting up and he could hang with the young man technically but Clark apparently said that was it and I think it was probably a judicious call, because he was in a hole now and he was very unlikely to climb back out. Like I said, he was in the match but seemed to unravel quickly. 

Summary: Kavanagh really is showing to be a nice TV fighter at this level, if not necessarily a future champion level of prospect. He's tough enough to bring good action and he's got a bit of craft to him. Clark, well, he works hard at a hard living he probably can't take part in for much longer but he's putting in the reasonable effort and didn't do himself any disservice, I don't think. He's still fulfilling the role of the kind of fighter you'd like to see a prospect in against before they take a step up with fresher fighters. Not a bad choice for FS1 on paper or in retrospect. It was good action from both men while it lasted.


Broadcast quote:

Danny Jacobs on Michael Clark:  "I had the pleasure of training with him out in Wild Card boxing gym with Freddie Roach and I seen him spar and I seen him fight. He's an excellent inside fighter so that's the fight that I want to see him fight tonight."




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