(Barry Chin/The Boston Globe) Danny O’Connor, lands a jab on Derek Silveira during the “Night at the Fights” event on January 26, 2013.
Saturday night marked the much-anticipated return of boxing inside the TD Garden, where Framingham Welterweight phenom, Danny O’Connor, returned to the ring in the eight-fight, “Night at the Fights” event. Initially, the event was scheduled to take place on December 14, 2012, but O’Connor would sustain an injury a few weeks prior to the event, leading to a rescheduled date of last night.
Prior to the four-card main event, fans were able to purchase tickets for a special VIP memorabilia show featuring a slew of local boxing legends from around the area including, Micky Ward, Marlon Sterling and Vinny Pazienza.
Leading off the main event card was a middleweight, four-round-bout between Russell Lamour (Portland, ME) and Luis Viramontes (Brockton, MA) that went the distance. In the opening round, both fighters were hesitant to go on the attack but that quickly changed by the second round. Quickly changing pace, Lamour proceeded with a dominant offensive attack targeting Viramontes’ midsection, but the Brockton native somehow remained on his feet, leading to a unanimous 40-36 decision by all three judges.
The second fight featured growing fan-favorite, Boston Police Officer Billy Traft (Dorchester, MA) against Joe Powers (Groton, CT) in a four-round Middleweight matchup. Powers, a former MMA fighter, found himself in uncharted territory in making his professional boxing debut in front of a raucous crowd of nearly 5,000 people, mostly in support of the Dorchester native. For the majority of the fight, Powers was the recipient of violent crosses, but never lost composure and tried wearing down Traft mostly through counter-attacks. In the end, the winner came down to a judge’s decision, which favored Traft unanimously at 40-36(twice) and 39-37.
After the Traft/Powers fight, the Garden crowd began to grow as Ryan Kielczewski (Quincy, MA) made his way to the ring to take on Washington Hago (Woodside, NY) in a lopsided lightweight bout. Kielczewski entered the fight undefeated and those of us in attendance quickly learned why. Right from the onset, the unbeaten lightweight dominated and knocked down the overwhelmed Hago in back-to-back fashion, prompting the Hago camp to waive the white flag.
After a brief intermission, the JumboTron at the TD Garden displayed the Silveira camp getting ready to make their entrance out to the ring, prompting chants of “Derek, Derek!” that were quickly drowned out by thunderous O’Connor boo birds. Fringe boxing fans may have chalked up the rowdy exchange between the two fan clubs as ordinary, but this fight was hardly ordinary by any measure. For starters, both “Clan O’Connor” and “Team Silveira” fan clubs exchanged heated pleasantries with each other on social media outlets since the original date of the fight was announced. The animosity was transparently on display throughout the event and for those who have traveled around to see O’Connor’s fights the last couple of years, it’s hard to recall a better atmosphere than the one that took Causeway Street by storm last night.
After both fighters squared away in their corners, Bruins folk-lord Rene Rancourt, kicked off the 10-round welterweight main event with his rousing rendition of the National Anthem.
As round one opened up, both fighters tried to measure each other up, with Silveira mostly going on the attack against the more athletic O’Connor. Overall, for the better part of the first two round, Silveira was the more aggressive fighter, but O’Connor quickly regrouped and looked like a completely different fighter, beginning in round three. After the third round, it was clear that Silveira was wasting too much energy throwing wild punches that rarely connected on the southpaw scraper. For this exact reason, combined with O’Connor’s thunderous left-counter-jab, Silveira quickly started showing signs of fatigue.
In rounds four and five, it was more of the same, as O’Connor’s ring experience showed up in timely fashion by countering Silveira’s erratic cross combinations. After round five ended, it was clear Silveira was focusing on scoring the knockout victory but it was also at that point when O’Connor knew Silveira’s strategy and continued to dodge the attack from Silveira. The more experienced O’Connor knew he was only halfway through the bout, and utilized his conditioning in the final five rounds.
In rounds seven and eight, Silveira started lounging more, leaving him susceptible to lethal counter-combinations from O’Connor.
In the final two rounds, O’Connor put a boxing clinic on display, as his superior conditioning and ring education was far superior to the exhausted Silveira. As the bell rang in round 10, both fan bases eagerly awaited the scoring decisions of the three-man judging panel, but there was hardly a doubt. As the O’Connor faithful grasped about a 95-95 split from one judge, the next two scoring decisions of 100-89 and 97-93 set the Garden into a Bruins-like frenzy, as O’Connor scored career win #20.
Another day, another historic venue, another win for the growing legend of Framingham native, Danny O’Connor. In the meantime, O’Connor will cherish time spent with wife Diana and his son, Liam before making the trek down to Houston to gear up for the next historic event.
