ELLIS ZORRO WINS BOXXER SERIES TOURNAMENT

By Dan Kelly @DeeKayNSB

Photo Credit - Lawrence Lustig/BOXXER

New Olympic signings, legendary trainers, current and ex world champions all ascended to Manchester on Saturday evening for Boxxer's Cruiserweight series tournament. 

The line up saw Ellis Zorro 11-0 vs Jay Farrell 9-2 pitted against each other in the first quarter final. The two most experienced out of the 8 participants shared the full 3 rounds scheduled in which Zorro executed the cleaner work throughout outpointing the Liverpudlian 30-27 on all scorecards. 

The second contest of the evening saw Jamie Smith 3-0 against Jack Fay 1-0-1. Both men came out firing landing several big clean shots with the first round being a contender for round of the night. The second round saw them come out firing again and Smith landed several shots clean with Fay being forced to take the knee yet he couldn't recover in time for Smith's next onslaught with enough unanswered shots to leave the referee no option but stop the bout at 1.03 seconds into the round. 

Ricky Reeves vs Anees Taj was the third quarter, Taj was down at the end of the first round from a terrific uppercut on the inside from Reeves however he regained his focus and battled well in the next two rounds only to lose out marginally on the score cards 27-29 28-29 28-28. 

Sheldon Mcdonald vs Ryan Cotterell was the last pairing of the quarters, It was Mcdonald who controlled the bout with a stiff jab putting Cotterell down in the opening round then out-boxing his man to a clear UD with scores of 30-27 29-27 30-26 

Zorro outpointed Smith in semi final 1 with scores of 29-28 29-28 30-28 but the real shock was in the other match up between Mcdonald and Reeves, they went hell for leather throughout both looking for a huge KO which that is exactly what we was served up, questionable if the referee could of stepped in a moment earlier to save Mcdonald from taking the penultimate shot that saw him receiving an oxygen mask in the corner for a few brief moments before getting to his feet and acknowledging his fellow Sheffield man centre ring. 

Onto the final and we had the most experienced man Ellis Zorro vs semi final KO artist Ricky Reeves. All to fight for. Eight men down to one. Nine minutes away from £40,000. A very tight nip and tuck affair with both boxers looking fatigued after an epic night seeing them battle through two opponents each. Maybe a bit underwhelming compared to the previous 6 fights of the evening but it was expected from the heavier division boxers compared to Dylan Cheema's epic lightweight final with Rylan Charlton last month in Coventry. Zorro narrowly out pointed Reeves with scores of 29-28 29-28 30-27. 

Congratulations to Ellis Zorro on winning the tournament taking his record to 14-0 and securing a contract with Boxxer and having the sky sports platform to showcase his talents further in what is already a red hot domestic cruiserweight division. The only way is up for the Lewisham man.