By Phil D. Jay

Alexandra Palace, London - British light heavyweight contender Tony Bellew (18-1, 12KOs) survived an early barrage to stop Edison Miranda (35-8, 30KOs) in the ninth round.

The first round was calmer than expected, but Miranda came out guns blazing in the second and tried to make it a war. He was pushing Bellew back and firing with both hands. Not many of the shots were landing and Bellew was looking to counter during exchanges.

The next couple or rounds were swinging back and forth between the two. Bellew was giving Miranda a lot of respect and giving him too many opportunities to let his hands go.

Around the sixth round, Bellew started to take over and began to break Miranda down with hard combinations. In the ninth round, Bellew started busting up Miranda and put him down. Miranda got to his feet and motioned to the referee that he was unable to continue.

English champions Lee Purdy and Erick Ochieng added to stoppage wins by John Ryder, Wadi Camacho, Kal Yafai and Ryan Taylor to score impressive victories at Alexandra Palace in London tonight.

Purdy, 25, picked up the IBF International welterweight belt to add to his fringe domestic strap by ending Argentinian hopes of a win on UK soil with a fourth round success against 16-fight unbeaten Gumersindo Carrasco.

The Colchester man had Carrasco down as early as the first round as both fighters went toe-to-toe for the duration of the contest. ‘Lights Out’ continued to pressure the South American up until the fourth, when a tired-looking Carrasco fell to the canvas again, before a swift body shot put him down for a third time.

Carrasco was then cowering against the ropes as Purdy unleashed more damaging punches, before the referee stepped in to give the English fighter the victory and improve his record to 19-3-1 with a twelfth stoppage.

Also on the bill, light-middleweight Erick Ochieng defended his belt for the second time with a fifth round win over Ryan Toms, with some vicious body shots doing the decisive damage in the contest.

Highly rated middleweight John Ryder moved to 12-0 tonight with a second round stoppage victory over Hungarian Sandor Micsko on the undercard of Tony Bellew v Edison Miranda in London.

The 24 year-old is tipped to go right to the top domestically in the coming months and put in another classy display of combinations as the ‘Gorilla’ scored his seventh career knockout.

Birmingham super-bantamweight Kal Yafai built on his first career victory in at the Motorpoint Arena in July by stopping Budapest-native Richard Voros in just over a minute to keep up his 100% KO record.

Also on the card, Martin J Ward picked up his maiden professional win with a comprehensive points decision over respected journeyman Kristian Laight after winning every round of the four scheduled.

The former amateur star now moves on to another paid contest in just two weeks’ time along with Yafai, when the Brentwood fighter travels to Belfast to appear on the Carl Frampton v Steve Molitor bill at the Odyssey Arena.

Lightweight Ryan Taylor extended his unbeaten run to seven fights with a routine victory over Hungarian Gyula Vajda at Alexandra Palace in London earlier tonight.

The 24 year-old from Upminster put the previously undefeated Vajda on the canvas three times to finally end the bout in the second round and improve his record to 6-0-1 with his third career stoppage.

Canning Town’s Wadi Camacho followed Taylor’s win with a second round technical stoppage of his own over Andy Ingram as the cruiserweight contender scored his 5th success in the professional ranks.

Phil D. Jay covers boxing for worldboxingnews.net