Scottish News: McAllister, Burns, Arthur And Appleby

By Gary Reilly: After a busy night of action in both Glasgow and Aberdeen the dust has settled on what was a busy Friday night in Scottish Boxing; One Commonwealth belt gained, one retained and Scotland’s last world champion came back at a new weight.

Lee McAllister finally made it into champion status with a convincing third round knockout of Godfred Sowah in front of a packed audience at Aberdeen’s Beach Ballroom. While the fight didn’t have the TV audience the outcome of the fight was far different from Ricky Burns Commonwealth title defence against Kevin O’Hara.

McAllister will now have a few months to decide who his first defence will be against, either Willie Limond or prize-fighter star Gary McArthur. With promises of a ‘Friday fight night slot’ and the opportunity to fight at the AECC, looks like McAllister will want to prove his champion credentials

Burns, making the third defence of his title came in with a point’s victory; however Sky pundits had it closer than the ringside judges. It wasn’t classic performance by Burns, but this reporter feels he won it by at least three rounds.

Refusing to be drawn on any potential opponents Burns seems confident he is improving each fight, and also must be fancying his chances at a shot at the British championship or even the full WBO world title.

Also making a short lived comeback was Alex Arthur who blew out French Algerian Mohamed Benbiou in first round. The fight didn’t show too much of Arthur’s skills, but while short it did show Arthur looked comfortable at his new weight. With the first win at the new weight hopefully we will see him back in action soon and re-cement his power, speed and all round skills

Recently there was purse bid announcement for Paul Appleby v Oleg Yefimourich for the EBU championship. This has a closing date of Tuesday 30th of June .As for this fight it will be interesting to see if Appleby’s promoter Tommy Gilmour will look to out bid the Ukrainian’s promoter.

Coming off a loss to Martin/Lindsay it would be a hard task for Appleby to go over to Ukraine to fight for the Belt, however with the right guidance and training it is certainly something that he could achieve.

June 25, 2009