McCloskey flatters to deceive against Lauri
In front of a boisterous Belfast crowd, local lad and European light-welterweight champion Paul McCloskey(pictured right in red) failed to find his best form as he plodded to a mundane victory over Giuseppe Lauri on Friday night.
The light-welterweight division is arguably the most talent-rich of all the classes at the moment and McCloskeyhas to stand out in a talented crowd to put himself in contention for top honours.
Although this was quite a determined performance, “Dudey” won’t have wowed those looking at the unbeaten Northern Irishman as a potential suitor for a world-title fight.
Credit to Lauri, who probably put in a performance above his ability, it wasn’t eye-catchingly skilful, but he put in a shift and gave everything he had. In contrast McCloskey was not at his best, his hand speed was lacking and he looked short of ideas. He will be pleased to have come through this potential banana skin without defeat but even he admitted that he was disappointed with his overall performance. However he did show a flash of tremendous class to drop the Italian with a peach of a right hook in the 11th round.
The tone for the fight was set in the first as McCloskey tried to get inside Lauri and make him pay with punishing body shots and uppercuts, something that would go on to be a fixture of this fight. Lauri was down in the second, although this was ruled a slip.
From then on in it was tight and tetchy. Dudey probably nicked the majority of the rounds, although Lauri came back into it and landed a few decent uppercuts in the early on. However McCloskey showed his durability and took control of the fight back soon after.
Somewhat worryingly, McCloskey looked shattered from the eighth and the Italian nearly made the champ pay by having his strongest round where he caused a cut above the McCloskey’s eye, but he failed to capitalise as many of his shots lacked real power.
Things started to get a bit cynical as McCloskey had a point deducted for head-butting in the 10th. Then in the 11th Lauri landed a rabbit punch, however his attempt at an apology fell on deaf ears as he was met by a fizzer of a right hook that laid the Italian out.
So a disappointing night in terms of performance by McCloskey, but as any sportsman will tell you a win is a win and he can take hear by the fact that it was a battling performance from Lauri.
As it stands McCloskey is currently ranked No. 7 by the WBC, but in a division that features Amir Khan, Devon Alexander, Timothy Bradley Jnr, Victor Ortiz, Marcos Maidana and others he really needs to up his quality if he wants to advance his career above domestic level.
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