On This Day: September 18th
2010: Matthew Macklin retained the European title he had won and relinquished the previous year. Fighting on the ill-fated Magnificent Seven card at the LG Arena in Birmingham, Macklin was dominant throughout. Initially due to face Darren Barker, the Tipperary Tornado instead took on Georgian Shalva Jomardashvili and forced a retirement at the end of the fifth round.
Watch Macklin v Jomardashvili below:
2010: On the same card in Birmingham, Frankie Gavin won the Irish light welterweight belt, the first of his career, with a fifth round stoppage of Michael Kelly.
2010: On the same night in Belfast, in what was just his eighth fight, Carl Frampton headlined his first card at the Ulster Hall against Ukrainian three-time European title challenger Yuriy Voronin. The Eastern European was stopped inside three rounds in front of a raucous crowd at the famous venue which included Hollywood legend Daniel Day Lewis.
Watch Frampton v Vorinon below:
2010: On the other side of the Atlantic, Katie Taylor defeated Chinese fighter Dong Cheng (18:5) to win a third consecutive World Championships gold in Bridgetown, Barbados. En-route to the final in the Caribbean, the Bray woman had beaten Indian Neetu Chahal (12:2), Brazilian Adriana Araujo (20:5), and Russian Anastasia Belyakova (16:1), before a barnstorming semi final win over American Queen Underwood (18:16).
1998: Belfast flyweight Liam Cunningham secured a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. A comfortable win (21:8) over South African Phumzile Matyhila ensured a place in the final in Malaysia. Earlier in the competition Cunningham had defeated England’s James Heghey (20:12) and Welsh boxer Darren Hayde (9:6), but he would be undone in the final by Richard Sunee of Mauritius.
