Cam O’Connell took his coach’s advice to heart and landed a blow to a vital organ of his opponent Friday night at the Genesis Centre in Calgary.
“We were working upstairs. I was hitting him hard with headshots and then he lifted his hands and my coach yelled ‘body shots’,” the Red Deer boxer said Monday, three days after scoring a technical knockout win over Csaba Toth of Hungary on the undercard of the Nekada Premier Fight Night event.
“I ripped a left hook to the liver and that’s what took him out.”
And just like that, the lightweight fight was over, a mere one minute and 50 seconds into the first round. How tired and unmarked was O’Connell following the victory that improved his unbeaten record to 9-0-1?
“I was back to work on Saturday,” he said.
Despite the early finish, O’Connell insisted Toth, whose record fell to 14-27-1, was a worthy opponent.
“He’s a tough competitor,” said O’Connell. “Nobody else in Canada had stopped him, so my job was to beat him easier than anyone else in Canada just to prove where I’m at.
“We did what we wanted to do.”
O’Connell plans to face his next opponent Dec. 4 at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton. Who that opponent will be won’t be determined for some time.
“By the looks of things, even if we started booking (an opponent) now we’d be changing,” he said.
The Red Deer fighter is all about staying busy.
“If another fight comes up before Dec. 4, I’m sure we’ll take it,” he said.
For now, though, he’s looking at early December, which means he’ll be back in the gym as early as Wednesday.
“I just got a text from my coach, Roman Rzepkowski. He said we’re just seven weeks out so we have to start getting ready,” said O’Connell.
Earlier on the card, welterweight Brian Samuel of Red Deer evened his record at 1-1-0 after recording a unanimous decision victory over Brett Enns of Calgary (2-2-0).
It was a satisfying win for Samuel, who lost his pro debut to Michael Affainie of Mississauga, Ont., May 29 in Calgary.
“I was very proud of him,” said O’Connell. “In his first fight he got beat pretty bad (second-round TKO) but he stepped up to the plate this time.”