Osaka, Japan – Prizefighter returns with Kieron Conway and Aaron McKenna winning in the quarter-finals. Rather than being crammed into three hours, the latest edition of this popular tournament will be played across three nights, with a $1 million prize up for grabs for the winner.
The middleweight quarterfinals took place at the Yamato Arena in Osaka, where China's Ainiwael Yilshati and Britain's Kieron Conway began the bout.
Conway is a decent, spirited boxer with a record of 21-3-1 (6 KOs), but he has shown signs of underperforming at the highest level, losing to Souleymane Sissoko and Austin Williams, but the 28-year-old was far more skilled than Ilikusati (19-2, 14 KOs), who came into the fight with a reputation as a serious puncher.
Aware of the potential danger, the taller Conway calmly assessed the challenge before him, fighting behind a tight guard and retreating to the ropes before going on the offensive as the first round drew to a close. Ilisiati's aggressive approach had seen him take out the majority of his opponents within two rounds, but ominously for the Chinese fighter, he was stung by a long right punch that Conway landed early on.
Conway continued his patient approach in the second round. Ilisiati's effort was beyond reproach, but he attacked and defended in a straight line and Conway never missed a one-two, every clean connection putting Ilisiati on the back foot.
Ilisiati landed a good left punch early in the third round, but rather than allowing that brief success to gain momentum, Conway quickly countered with stronger and cleaner punches of his own, taking complete control of the bout.
In the fourth round, Conway increasingly pressed from the center of the ring as Ilisiati struggled to close the distance. His attacks slowed as he was repeatedly met with stronger and more accurate jabs, clearly wary of catching the right hands that were coming at him regularly afterwards.
Conway nearly ended the fight in the fifth round. A right uppercut hurt Ilisiati, and Conway continued his accurate attack, catching him with a flurry of left hooks. With swelling around his eye, outgunned and technically no match for Conway, Ilisiati survived and pressed forward bravely, but now he was a more stationary target and his attacks were losing momentum.
By the seventh, the only real question was whether Conway would stop the fight and earn his share of the $100,000 bonus pool. Confident that he had fended off Ilisiati's attacks, Conway began to kick into gear. He got away with a hard right punch, then another clean left that clearly had Ilisiati fed up. Conway continued to follow Ilisiati with punches, finally landing a well-timed right punch that forced the referee to step in and stop the fight.
He advances to the second round where he will face the winner of the fight between Aaron McKenna and Giovanni Estella.
The matchup between Ireland’s aggressive McKenna (19-0 (10 KOs)) and American stylist Estella (14-1 (5 KOs)) was expected to be one of the most anticipated quarter-final bouts, but McKenna quickly took control and put in a dominant performance.
McKenna, as always, started on the offensive. The smaller Estella likes to move around, but he was on the back foot from the start, and although he landed the occasional pretty counter, he was forced to fight at an unnatural pace. Just as McKenna was starting to gain momentum, a right punch from above froze him for a moment. Luckily for the Irishman, the bell rang.
The 25-year-old McKenna managed to recover well between rounds, and in the second round she overwhelmed Estella with some hard right hooks, but much of McKenna's success came from not giving Estella any room to attack. Despite some rough moments at times, McKenna kept her on Estella's chest and kept her against the ropes.
Estella's offensive power dropped off dramatically and McKenna found it increasingly easy to close the distance and let his hands go. He was on the receiving end of clipping counters at times but remained unfazed and continued to dominate the previously unbeaten 23-year-old.
McKenna opened up the distance between them a bit in the fourth round and began landing clean punches. She couldn't miss a right punch and Estella landed a flurry of punches towards the end of the round. Estella refused to crumble but was fighting a losing battle. The fifth round was a test for the Florida native as McKenna stepped up the pressure in an attempt to get the stoppage. McKenna may have been guilty of head hunting but he dominated the round and at one point scored with three consecutive left hooks that made Estella look defeated as she returned to her corner.
Estella showed determination, but his hopes of winning the bout were gone and his dream of winning the million dollar prize turned into a tough fight for survival. He survived the seventh round, but McKenna was not one to take his foot off the gas and continued to dominate Estella in the eighth. McKenna suffered a minor cut above his right eye from one blow, but he didn't let the blood slow him down, landing a series of clean punches on Estella again in his corner.
The ninth round started brutally for Estella. Her corner must have thought about taking her out of the fight. She couldn't keep McKenna down and was too tired to neutralize McKenna's inside work. But Estella refused to go down, getting back up after countless clean shots.
McKenna continued his offensive attack through the tenth round, finally stopping the fight with just 58 seconds remaining. There was not a single perfect strike to end the bout. The referee's decision to step in was the result of relentless punishment, round after round, and in fact, he could have intervened a few rounds earlier.
McKenna advanced to the semifinals against Conway, winning the match and earning a $100,000 bonus prize.
