Friday night fights win moves Ajax boxer one step closer to world title

Every brutal round is a learning experience for Sukhdeep ‘Chakria’ Singh, the pride of Ajax and India’s Punjab region, in his long march to a world title in the ultra competitive super welterweight division.

Chakria moved to 19-0 Friday night at Pickering Casino Resort with a unanimous decision victory over former Polish and Baltic champion Lukasz ‘Crazy Cat’ Maciec (29-7-1), but despite winning all ten rounds on the judge’s scorecard, the victory was far from easy.

The Ajax super welterweight inflicted some heavy damage on Maciec early and often but the Polish fighter used his experience to dance away from serious punishment, while getting in enough shots of his own to keep Chakria honest.

Chakria kept coming with combinations and had Maciec in trouble in the last few rounds but could not get the knockout against a fighter that has never been off his feet in 38 professional fights.

Both boxers looked for the finish in a wild ninth, with each taunting the other to slug it out in the middle of the ring. Chakria rocked Maciec with some devastating body shots and a left hook that snapped his opponent’s head back, but Maciec remained on his feet right until the final bell.

“He knew how to move and how to survive,” Chakria said after the fight, while acknowledging the Polish fighter’s edge in experience. “I was trying to stop him early but he was moving around too much. He’s had nearly 40 fights.”

Chakria, who came into Friday’s fight off an electrifying 4th-round knockout of Argentina’s Gino Godoy in April, does have a couple of belts already – he’s the reigning Canadian champion as well as the IBF International champion – but he hopes this win will set him up for a world championship bout down the road.

“I’ll talk to my team and my promoter and we’ll see what happens.”

The co-main event also went the distance, with Melinda Watpool, who hails from Pefferlaw, started boxing in Ajax and now trains in Mississauga, earning a unanimous decision against a physical Natasha Spence for the WBA International Middleweight championship.

The ten-round bout – Watpool’s first belt – was a long-awaited rematch of a methodical win last December by ‘The Whip’ against ‘The Nightmare,’ who took the first fight on short notice.

The outcome was the same Friday night but new #1 world contender (WBA, WBC) Watpool had to work much harder as Spence, who has a motor that won’t quit, tried to push her opponent around for ten rounds.

Watpool (7-0) responded with plenty of body shots to wear Spence down and by the end of the seventh the Cambridge fighter was showing signs of fatigue. But Spence is nothing if not relentless and she tried to slug it out in the final three rounds.

At the bell Spence was still standing, with the judges scoring it 98-92, 99-91 and 99-91 for Watpool, who gave a shout-out to her game opponent after the bout.

“She’s tough. She knows what she’s doing out there.”

Watpool had a table of teenage girls watching the fight in a show of support for the popular boxer and hopes to reward her fans with a shot at a world title, teasing a possible in-the-works fight with Claressa Shields (13-0), a 29-year-old American who holds the WBC and WBA titles, or a slice of the vacant IBF or WBO belts.

“Hopefully we can have a world title fight next. Maybe in November.”

Melinda Watpool earned a ten-round unanimous decision over Natasha Spence to win the WBA International Middleweight championship. Photo Glenn Hendry

Pickering’s own Kyle ‘Caveman’ McLaughlin (5-0) scored the most decisive win on the five-card event, stalking Argentine Sebastian ‘Pretty Boy’ Bravo from the get-go and dropping him 35 seconds into the second round with a one-two combination.

The beat down of highly regarded Bravo (4-3-1) is the latest highlight in McLaughlin’s young career, with four of his five wins coming by knockout.

The second bout on the card also ended early when Polish cruiserweight Huburt Kraususki (1-5-1), went down in pain 48 seconds into the second against Sunderland former soccer player Milan Zariean, now 3-0.

Zariean overwhelmed Kraususki from the opening bell and the Polish fighter was out of gas when he went down.

Perhaps the most entertaining fight on the card was the only loss suffered by a hometown fighter, with Matias Medina of Argentina scoring a unanimous decision victory over Oshawa’s Evan Gillard (59-55, 58-56, 58-56).

Medina, who weighed in at 109 pounds for the flyweight bout, came out looking for the knockout and dropped Gillard to the canvas for an eight-count early, only to see the Oshawa fighter return the favour late in the first round.

Medina (3-0-1) may have just come up to ‘Kid Chrome’ Gillard’s chin, but he came up too often and he had the Oshawa fighter (6-1-1) on the defensive through most of the six rounds, with the Argentine showing plenty of power in a small package to earn the win.

Pickering’s Kyle McLaughlin scored a second round TKO over Sebastian Bravo of Argentina. Photo Jeff Lockhart