Dublin - Limerick’s Paddy Donovan stepped up in class and made a real statement, stopping English welterweight champion, Danny Ball, in four rounds. 

Donovan (12-0, 9 KO’s) took the centre of the ring, trusting his reflexes and hand speed. The southpaw got off first with his jab and tried to find a home for his left hand. Ball (13-2-1, 6 KO’s) is an experienced, accomplished fighter and was unperturbed by Donvan’s fast hands. He kept his own hands up and looked to get his own right hand going. 

Ball opened the second with a nice long left hooks but was being forced into being patient and his attacks had to be accurate or the sharp Donovan made him pay. One quick step back gave him the space to land a left hand and he followed it up with an accurate burst. It was impressive stuff through two for the unbeaten Irishman.

Ball mixed it up in the third, keeping his hands tight and trying to get on the front foot but Donovan’s quick feet had him falling short and paying a penalty for missing. Ball seemed willing to sacrifice the early rounds if it meant emptying Donovan’s gas tank and although he again lost the round, he did end it with a nice right hand. 

Realizing that he needed to shake Donovan out of his comfort zone, Ball gambled. He lead with a right hand but fell short and over his front foot. Donovan reacted instantly, landed a hard left and putting Ball down heavily. Ball bravely got up but came under a sustained, heavy barrage in the corner. As he escaped, Donovan caught him with a heavy body shot and as he sank to his knees, the corner threw in the towel. The time was 2.41 of round four.

Donovan picked up a WBA ranking belt and looks ready for much tougher tests.

Also on the card, Thomas Carty (7-0, 6 KO’s) and Dan Garber (5-2, 1 KO) met over eight rounds at heavyweight and to say the fight failed to catch fire would be an extreme understatement. 

The smaller Garber was much lighter on his feet than the thick set Carty and skirted the outside of the ring, wary of letting his hands go. Carty followed him around, loading up with his left hand and missing wildly when he did let it go.

Garber opened the second with a little more ambition, letting a three punch combination go before dancing out of range and Carty clumsily fell in behind a left hand. It was pretty tame stuff.

Garber was successfully avoiding Carty’s lunges but was fighting extremely passively and the Dubliner hadn’t been able to work with any rhythm or structure, resorting to loading up on wild lead left hands and right hooks. 

With precious little to worry him defensively, Carty could concentrate on breaking down Garber but neglected his jab and bodywork. He was able to get closer during a messy fourth round but that was mainly due to Garber’s constant back pedalling taking its toll on his gas tank. 

Carty continued to press forward and began to jab in the fifth. Garber was now in full survival mode and gave the impression that a sustained spell of pressure from Carty could bring a pretty swift conclusion to proceedings but Carty was fighting in a funk and unable to shake himself out of it.

After warning them in the opening round, referee, Paul McCullagh, brought the fighters together again in the sixth, imploring them to provide more action. Within seconds, they fell into a clinch. It was a sequence that summed up the entire fight. 

A tired Garber felt a thumping hook to the body in the seventh but just as an opportunity to capitalise on it opened, Carty fell in and smothered his work.

Carty did land a nice right hook in the eighth and final round but he again allowed himself to fall into a clinch. With less than a minute left, Carty landed a cuffing uppercut and a solid left-right and an exhausted Garber sank to the canvas. He got up in instalments and the referee decided to stop the fight. The official time was 2.19 of the eighth.