Defeated Spike will bounce back, says trainer Collins
O’Sullivan, unbeaten in 16 fights prior to the Wembley Arena 12-rounder, relinquished his WBO International middleweight belt after an unanimous decision to the English southpaw on Frank Warren’s “Behind Enemy Lines” promotion.
O’Sullivan had been aiming to edge a step closer to a world title tilt with America’s Peter “Kid Chocolate” Quillin with the 17th victory of his pro career.
But the Cork orthodox (Loughmahon BC) lost out (120-119, 120-119, 119-110) across the board to the Team GB 2008 Olympian.
Undefeated Saunders improved to 18 straight wins following the win and is now being lined up to challenge for the WBO crown after he defends his Commonwealth title. The English fighter defends his Commonwealth belt against John Ryder at the Copper Box Arena in London on September 21 and O’Sullivan will be on the undercard, according to Collins, who was working O’Sullivan’s corner in London.
He said: “Spike did his best and he’ll learn a lot from this. Billy looked sharp.
“He was moving around a lot and it was hard to pin him down.
“I was disappointed for Spike, but I wasn’t too disappointed overall. It was inactivity for Spike. Spike’s fought three rounds in the last year while Saunders has fought 28 or 30 rounds. Basically, he was the sharper guy as he’s been more active.
“There were parts of the fight when Spike did catch up and let the shots go.
“He hurt him and pushed him all the way. We’ll learn a lot from this and take a lot of positives from London. Gary will be out again in September. We’ll learn from this and take a lot of positives — and we’ll be staying away from southpaws for a while.”
Meanwhile, it was a bad night for Irish fighters at Wembley as Dundalk lightweight Mike Kelly was TKO’d in the fifth by Bradley Saunders.
Kelly was so disgusted with the decision to stop the fight that he started doing press ups in the ring to prove he was fit to continue.
Steve Collins Jnr, son of former two-weight world champion, Steve, recorded his second pro career win with a points victory over British cruiserweight Paul Morris on the undercard.
In the main event of the evening at Wembley Arena, heavyweight Dereck Chisora moved back into world title contention with a controversial 6th round KO of Malik Scott. Chisora found the target with a right and Scott went down, but as he was taking the count he appeared to either miscount or lose focus and when he rose after the count reached nine, the ref waved it off.
Scott, unbeaten going into the Saturday’s encounter, claimed after the fight that he beat the count.
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