Pat Brown entered Friday’s main event in Altrincham, England, with all of 11 career rounds under his belt, and he needed nearly as many to crack the hardwearing Vasil Ducar.
In only his second scheduled 10-rounder, Brown needed the better part of eight rounds – plus several knockdowns – to finally finish Ducar, run his record to 6-0 and maintain the stoppage streak to start his career.
Czechia’s Ducar, now 19-8-2 (14 KOs), entered Friday with 172 career rounds and only two previous stoppage defeats.
“He’s a tough operator,” Brown said in the ring after the fight. “This is me sixth fight. I’ve never gone past four rounds before, and even in sparring I’ve never really gone 10 rounds. I’ve only ever gone six to eight. So I’ve learned a lot tonight.”
Altrincham’s Planet Ice was a favorable learning environment for Brown, a 26-year-old from nearby Manchester, and the goal from the start seemed to be to get the fast-rising cruiserweight rounds against a quality mid-level opponent.
Both fighters were tentative early, Brown working mostly off the back foot and Ducar seemingly wary of his opponent’s increasingly renowned power. Brown got loose with several sharp jabs and well-placed uppercuts. The fight seemed to be headed toward a washout in the third – until Ducar landed an uppercut that drew blood from Brown’s nose and followed with a right cross to the kisser.
Brown picked up his pace in the fourth, targeting the body and perhaps feeling he had sufficiently drawn in Ducar. A sturdy right hand upstairs and an uppercut under Ducar’s guard to finish the round demonstrated Brown was still firmly in control.
Ducar snapped Brown’s head back with a jab in the fifth, but he ate yet another uppercut for his troubles. Brown turned up the volume in the second half of the round, whipping his opponent’s jaw with back-to-back rights, landing a straight right through the guard and then rattling Ducar’s molars with a pinpoint uppercut. Still, Brown was reminded that it was still a fight when Ducar popped him with another nasty jab.
Ducar snuck another stick through in the closing seconds of the round, but Brown answered back with a double hook, sinking his left first into Ducar’s ribs and then changing levels to club him behind the ear, sending him to hands and knees on the canvas.
The bell to end the round saved Ducar – and only just – but the 36-year-old was sucking down big gulps of air on his stool, and now Brown had the necessary coordinates. When they engaged again in the sixth, Brown curled his toes and swung for the fences. Big right uppercut. Another hooking left to the ribs. A sidewinder right hand that left his opponent’s ancestors with earaches. Ducar clutched, and even fought back with what remained, but he was fading.
Brown opened the spigot wider, throwing more, landing enough and, finally, dropping his opponent again, this time with a right uppercut. Ducar made it to his feet, convinced referee Michael Alexander that he was still game, then braced for more. If nothing else, Ducar was showing incredible resolve, and he even managed to thud a right hand across Brown’s cheek before the end of the sixth that appeared to frustrate the receiver.
Ducar fought with a second wind in the seventh, taking punishment as Brown methodically pulled the trigger – but also delivering his own. Ducar offered right hands, a mean uppercut and even blasted Brown’s gumshield from his mouth – twice! – which allowed Ducar to regroup and, quite possibly, win the round.
Unfazed, Brown doubled down in the eighth, clearly expectant of the finish. Ducar struggled to find an opening to get off his own offense, and when Brown had his opponent’s back against the ropes in the round’s final seconds, he uncorked a right hand to the chin that wobbled Ducar and just sank his knees to touch the canvas for a knockdown. Ducar was up instantly and shaking his head, seemingly doubting the ruling, and walked – sturdily – to a neutral corner. But when Alexander, in mid-count, arrived to check on him, what he saw prompted him to wave off the fight then and there.
“I knew he was tough, and that’s why I started slow,” Brown said of Ducar. “I was just reading him a little bit. Obviously, there’s a lot of things to take from it. That’s why I’m getting fast-tracked, and getting in there quick, because I believe in myself. That’s better than stopping him in the first or second round, for me. That’s why I took me time properly. He’s a tough, tough man.”
Earlier, in chief support of the Brown-Ducar main event, William Crolla, 9-1 (7 KOs), authored an epic comeback stoppage win over Glenn Byrne, 7-0-1 (1 KO), that lifted Planet Ice in a cacophonous roar before quickly rendering it solemnly silent.
After surviving four knockdowns across the first five rounds, Manchester’s Crolla, a 26-year-old southpaw, began to break through in the sixth, his aggressiveness and Byrne’s exhaustion mixing in a dangerous cocktail. In the seventh, a Crolla right hand / left hook combination rocked Byrne against the ropes, but Byrne immediately responded with a straight right that shook Crolla to his toe tips and drew a gasp from the crowd.
But when Byrne, a 29-year-old from Loughlinstown, Ireland, followed a jab with a lazy right hand, Crolla found the opening he needed, throwing – and landing – another screaming left hook. Byrne was out before he hit the canvas, and his awkward fall – his head banging on the ring floor – led to an abundance of caution in the ensuing moments and a suddenly hushed crowd.
“I just want to give my thoughts and condolences to Glenn Byrne,” Crolla said afterward. “I hope he’s OK. I'm sorry I celebrated after it. I didn’t realize how badly he was hurt.”
Byrne was conscious and attempted to get up on his own power, but attendants kept him lying down until a stretcher arrived to transport him from the ring as a precaution.
Crolla admitted that he thought late in the fight that he had been knocked down only twice, and needed to be corrected by his corner.
“I was just fighting on pure instinct, man,” Crolla said.
“I know it sounds nasty – I got dropped four times – but I didn’t really feel his power. I didn't respect it. I tried walking through him. And I'm much better than that. I can't be in fights like that at this level. I need to go away and work.”
