From Chakar village’s warrior spirit to the people’s champ in Ajax, Sukhdeep Singh keeps winning

It’s hard to argue with 16-0.

The pride of the Punjab and his adopted hometown of Ajax, Sukhdeep Singh Bhatti continued to add to his sparkling boxing resume with a 10-round unanimous decision victory over Mexico City’s Luis Vidales, who came into the ring at the Pickering Casino Resort Saturday night with a 24-8 record and a reputation as a skilled boxer and ring tactician.

Singh, however, won all ten rounds and was rarely in trouble and whenever Vidales did break down the Ajax middleweight’s defences, as he did briefly in the ninth round, Singh was able to bob, weave and dance his way to safety and counter-punch his way back into control.

Singh was the aggressor throughout the fight and landed several good shots in the early rounds and put a few nice combos together in the fifth and sixth rounds but wasn’t able to press the advantage.

Not known as a power puncher, Singh will have to learn to harness his power if he wants to move up in the world rankings and take on the big boys. Singh did finish with a bang in the tenth, landing a series of big bombs but wasn’t able to deliver the knockout.

Four of his last five fights have gone the distance and the last time he finished an opponent in the first three rounds was nearly 19 months ago when he won the Canadian title with a TKO in the third over Jordan Balmir at the CAA Centre in Brampton.

Ricardo ‘Big 12’ Brown has the exact opposite problem. Finding an opponent who can last three rounds with the big heavyweight, who fought for Jamaica in the Tokyo Olympics before turning pro with Tyler Buxton’s United Promotions, has proven to be a challenging task.

The 6’7” Brown is now 9-0 and he’s only gone three rounds once while delivering first round stoppages in four of his nine fights.

Saturday night’s bout at least went into second before referee Dave Dunbar mercifully called an end to the proceedings with Pavel Sour of the Czech Republic, with 35 fights on his dance card, trapped against the ropes.

The bout started off with some promise, with Sour trading blows with Brown before the Spanish Town native (he now calls Brantford home) dropped his Czech opponent twice before the first round was over.

A relaxed Ricardo ‘Big 12″ Brown before his second round TKO of Czech champion Pavel Sour

The fight preceding the co-main event was over in two rounds as well but it was a highly entertaining five minutes and eleven seconds of boxing, with Oshawa’s Thad Buntsma coming out on top over tough Hamilton fighter Dylan Rushton.

Buntsma, now 4-3-1, chased Rushton around the ring in the super welterweight bout and landed several big punches before the fight was stopped at the 2:11 mark of the second. Rushton has a rock solid chin and refused to go down but was overmatched in this one.

Kemahl Russell was a dominant winner in his middleweight fight against Mexico’s Juan Carlos Raygosa, with the Jamaican punishing Raygosa in the first and second rounds with an onslaught of punches and drilling him with a devastating left hook to end the third.

Russell moved to 15-1 when he forced the referee to stop the fight after knocking Raygosa down twice in the first 30 seconds of the fourth round.

Rising middleweight Melinda Watpool, a former Canadian amateur champion, improved her record to 4-0 with a unanimous decision win over Spanish fighter Patricia Gonzalez, who gave Pefferlaw’s toughest export all she could handle over eight rounds.

Watpool was the more efficient fighter and won all eight rounds on the judges’ scorecard but both fighters appeared tired in the final round.

The event got underway with an entertaining six round super featherweight fight between Michael Cabato of Toronto (2-0-1) and Mexico’s Oscar Velazquez (0-2-2), with Cabato, 24, winning four of the six rounds on two scorecards and five of six on the other to earn the decision over his 20 year-old opponent.

The fight had big bombs thrown by both boxers – especially in a highly entertaining fifth round – with a lot of clinches as well by two young fighters just starting promising boxing careers.

Sukhdeep Singh of Ajax with the unanimous decision victory