By Badlefthook
Marcus Morrison may have gotten his career back on track today in Italy.By Scott Christ@scblh1 Jul 11, 2019, 6:05pm EDTSHARE
In today’s DAZN main event from Rome, Italy, former prospect Marcus Morrison of England may have revived his career with a ninth round TKO of veteran home fighter Emanuele Blandamura.
It was a fight that had been competitive if rather unspectacular — which is an odd word, really, how many fights are spectacular? How many anythings are spectacular? — with Morrison doing well when he pushed the action, but seemingly too rarely doing that, allowing Blandamura to get fairly comfortable.
But then late in the ninth round, Morrison (21-3, 15 KO) drilled Blandamura (29-4, 5 KO) with a right hand, one that Blandamura walked onto, and the Italian went down. Blandamura did get up, but the referee made the very wise decision to stop the fight.
After the stoppage, Blandamura had to be physically held up by the referee, and he was softly lowered down to the canvas so that medical attention could be given. After a couple of minutes, though, he sat and then stood up, embracing Morrison and looking OK.
For Morrison, 26, this is definitely the best win of a once-promising career. He’d run his record to 14-0 before an upset loss to Jason Welborn in March 2017, which was followed three months later by a stunning loss to club fighter Tyan Booth, and then another in June 2018 against Alistair Warren, who came in 10-18-4.
But Morrison has now won five in a row, and may have gotten himself back to where he could at least fight for a domestic or European title at some point.
For the 39-year-old Blandamura, this may be the end of the line. He won the European middleweight title in 2016, having previously failed in two attempts, and challenged for a secondary world title in April 2018 against Ryota Murata in Japan. He’s done everything he’s going to do in the sport, realistically, and this KO was pretty scary for a few minutes there.
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