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Support Bout
Having struggled through a 1-0-2 start to his career, London's Frank Bruno was desperate for a victory in order to maintain his chances of progressing in the World Championship tournament. His opponent this evening was the 0-3, 122nd-seeded Bostonian Dan Flynn, so anything less than a win would be a huge disappointment for Bruno.
As it turned out, the powerful Brit did not disappoint himself or his many fans, scoring a unanimous decision victory (59-54, 59-55, 59-54) over the durable Flynn. Although it wasn't a fantastic performance, the win will surely give Bruno some confidence going into his next bout against the tournament's 7th seed Young Stribling.
The first four rounds were evenly split, with Bruno content to cruise through the second and fourth, allowing Flynn to do enough to take them. But Bruno really stepped up his workrate in round five, coming close to finishing the Boston native before dropping him twice in the bottom half of the final stanza to secure his victory.
Co-Feature
Bronx native Roland LaStarza bounced back from last month's shock 2nd round KO loss to Mac Foster, taking a comfortable unanimous decision win (59-55, 58-56, 60-54) over Canada's Jack Renault.
LaStarza had been quick to dismiss the loss to Foster as an "unfortunate fluke" and showed tonight that he will continue to be an opponent that others will have to be weary of as he dominated Renault, winning all but the third round in convincing style, highlighted by an impressive round five where he had the Canadian out on his feet before the bell saved him.
"Nothing has changed," said LaStarza. "I'm not going to do anything differently just because a guy landed a lucky punch on me. I'm still confident that I'll finish stage one on top of Group Seven. I don't care what Stribling does against these other guys, because I'll be a completely different challenge for him and I don't think he'll be able to rise to that. I'm just relishing and looking forward to stepping in the ring against him. When that happens, everyone will see what I've been talking about."
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