Niall Kennedy bounces back from knockdown to score KO win

It didn’t start too well for Niall Kennedy, but he finished his seventh pro fight in style.

‘Boom Boom Baz’ was put on the seat of his pants within seconds of the first bell by Gheorge Danut before rising to his feet to force an impressive stoppage.

The Wexford native went on to crack DaNut forcing him to the canvas three times en-route to a fifth round stoppage win, the fourth of his career.

The fight didn’t get off to the best of starts for the Wexford man, he found himself on his arse after just 10 seconds.

In fairness Kennedy was off balance and the shot to the mid rift more pushed Boom Boom over, but it gave Danut confidence and he came windmilling.

The squat fighter who once fought between welter and super middle, was hard to figure out, but once Kennedy found his range in the second his class began to show.

He leveled the knockdown score with a lovely jab uppercut early in the stanza, Danut did his best Karate Kid impression standing on one leg to prove to Mickey Vann he was ok, but the bell all but saved him and brought him to round three.

The puncher fighting out of the away blue corner was a lot more tenative in the third and showed survival skills as the Celtic Warrior Gym fighter stalked him.

Danut, who looked like Robert De Nero in the second part of the Raging Bull, took some clean shots in the fourth and, while he played tough early in the stanza, he was dropped again under a barrage.

The bell again saved the journeyman, but the end was nigh and when he sank down into another well time upper cut in 1:02 in the fifth there was no way back.