PERHAPS Ashlee Eales wasn’t kidding when the talented Nuneaton southpaw gave himself the ring nickname “Real Deal”.
Eales, former Midlands light-middleweight champ, looked closer to the real deal than I’ve ever seen him before in destroying Daniel O’Sullivan in four rampaging rounds at Cannock’s Chase Leisure Centre.
This was the best version of 31-year-old Eales I’ve witnessed from ringside, possibly the best performance of his 14 bout career.
Nuneaton’s former professional dancer was measured, patient and hit with chilling power. He boxed with intelligence, drawing the rugged Dubliner’s sting, melting his resistance with heavy left hands, then closing the show with surgical precision.
And he closed the show in dramatic style, dropping the unbeaten Irish champ three times in the fateful fourth. The visitor wasn’t just beaten, he was demolished, receiving oxygen in the ring afterwards.
After the dust had settled on an outstanding main event, I came to the conclusion Eales and trainer Lee Spare won because they had a Plan B, O’Sullivan did not: even when the furnace hot aggression he brought to the ring wasn’t working, Daniel didn’t have another tactic to turn to.
Tattooed Eales knew precisely when to press his foot down on the pedal, O’Sullivan was pushing pedal to the metal from the second. In a sweltering stadium, that gamble was near suicidal.
I’ll admit to getting this one badly wrong. Good sources in Ireland had told me O’Sullivan, with seven straight wins under his belt, was something special, I believed he’d have too much for Eales.
Frankly, I thought Eales was brought in to add a respected name to O’Sullivan’s list of victims. In reality, Eales had too much for him – too much savvy, skill and strength. He tore up the script.
In the dressing room afterwards Eales, no slouch when it comes to self-publicity, vowed there is much more to come.
He said: “It’s been a long time since I’ve been that nervous for a fight, he was a tough guy, he’ll come again. He just wasn’t ready for that step tonight.
“I have the power and skill to match the top fighters – even be a few steps above. What I don’t have is their fitness and conditioning. When that comes, you’re really going to see something – I just scratched the surface tonight.”
What the fans got on Scott Murray’s show was an excellent scheduled eight rounders worthy of the anthems played before it. The bout was all action, full of incident.
Referee Pete McCormack deducted a point from O’Sullivan in the third after his gumshield had spilled in each session, the Irishman emerged from a clinch in the same session with blood seeping from his scalp: the injury’s location suggested a head clash.
O’Sullivan, in superb condition, was the Gaelic bull, bobbing and weaving forward before unleashing rib-bending body shots: “Tell you what, I felt some of those,” the winner confessed afterwards.
Eales (11st 1lbs) was the East Midlands matador, upright and quick to punish mistakes with straight shots.
Warnings of what was to come came in the opening minute as Eales landed with left hands, yet O’Sullivan (11st 5lbs) shrugged them off and kept driving hooks to the body, hurling the heavy shots against his opponent’s flanks.
The second began to pan out as I expected. O’Sullivan drove Eales to the ropes, whaled away, then was momentarily frozen by a combination. Ashlee had laid down his marker.
In the third, Eales was caught wrong footed by a right and sent lurching across the ring.
Yet he bit on his gumshield, kept looking for counters and delivered one left to the midsection – lost by the fans in the moment – that I felt sent energy ebbing from O’Sullivan like steam from a kettle.
Daniel was also beginning to pay for the high tempo he’d set: hands were dropping, his stance was square on.
The tank was emptying. He was losing his shape.
He looked fatigued and ragged in the fourth, a man running out of stamina and ideas.
Eales knew it was time to lower the boom, a swinging uppercut dropping O’Sullivan to his haunches. He rose too quickly, legs disobedient while the eight count was tolled, dropped again by a follow-up, then felled for a final time by a looping shot.
Referee McCormack gave him every chance, but waved it off at two minutes 55 seconds.
“I want titles,” Eales said afterwards. Don’t bank against him capturing them.
