LONDON, England – Heavyweight prospect Soloman Dacres returned to winning ways and improved to 10-1 (3 KOs) with a 10-round decision over previously unbeaten Vladyslav Sirenko.
Dacres routed the visitor by margins of 99-91, 98-92 and 99-92 and Sirenko, now 22-1 (19 KOs), who lives in Staten Island but was born in Kiev, Ukraine, was listless.
The 30-year-old Sirenko is 6ft 4ins, and he pushed Dacres back with his jab early and tried to make room for right hands to follow up.
But Dacres was using the ring, jabbing and throwing when Sirenko got close, and he threw a right uppercut on the bell to close out the opener.
Dacres started the second with confidence and let his shots go although he paid for dropping his left too low when Sirenko caught him with a right hand.
The Englishman, from the West Midlands, opened up more in the third, peppering Sirenko with right hands and causing blood to come from Sirenko’s nose.
Sirenko was disappointing. He looked one-paced and his attacks were one dimensional. He looked fatigued as he trudged back to his corner after four and Dacres opened the fifth spitting out left hooks and right hands as Sirenko simply marched after him.
Sirenko was eating right hands, but he wasn’t blinking and he kept coming.
Nothing changed about Sirenko. He grimly threw right hands to the point where one wondered whether Dacres had the gas tank to keep him at bay.
There was more urgency about the Ukrainian’s work to open the eighth and he kept burrowing forward. Occasionally Dacres was made to pay for carrying his hands too low. Referee Bob Williams had little to do as the Wembley Stadium crowd started to fill up.
Dacres, coming in off a one-round loss to David Adeleye, was firing with both hands in the 10th. He was unable to deter Sirenko, but he was landing plenty and often found room for the right around Sirenko’s guard and when the margin of victory was announced, there was only one winner.
Junior welterweight Aadam Hamed, son of the flamboyant Hall of Famer ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed – from Sheffield but fighting out of Dubai – defeated Ezequiel Gregores, an Argentine who fights out of Spain and who entered with a 3-24 record.
They boxed over four rounds and there were few highlights.
Southpaw Hamed, trained by Jamie Moore, started getting his straight left going early and Gregores was reduced to missing with some wild swings.
Hamed, with his father looking on from ringside, seemed calm and composed, but Gregores was limited and toothless.
The Englishman, hands low, probed with his rangy jab in the second, and Hamed banked another round for experience in the third.
Hamed had his own way in the fourth, although he was clipped by a left hook with about a minute left in the session.
Hamed is now 6-0 (3 KOs).
Referee Amy Pugh scored it 40-36.
Olympic semi-finalist Lasha Guruli, a 28-year-old from Kvareli, Georgia, improved to 2-0 (1 KO) after a resounding fifth-round stoppage of Liverpool-based James Francis, who drops to 7-2 (1 KO). Francis had amassed his record against journeymen and Guruli was a heck of a step up.
Guruli started to close the gap early in the first round, stepping in behind left hooks and straight rights.
He began the second behind a sharp right uppercut and he had Francis on the back foot with right hands as the round continued, with blood spewing from the Englishman’s nose.
Round four followed a familiar pattern, with Francis’ head occasionally jolted back and it was of no surprise when Francis was withdrawn and not allowed out after the bell had sounded to start the fifth. Official time of the withdrawal was two seconds into round five. The junior welterweight clash had been set for six and they opened the show at Wembley Stadium ahead of the undisputed heavyweight title fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois.
