KO1 – Paul Ryan puts in another statement performance
Paul Ryan kicked off his year in London tonight with another vicious early stoppage to underline his credentials among Irish prospects.
The Dublin light middleweight, a graduate of Bay City, was in action on an MTK Fight Night at the famous York Hall and flattened CJ Wood inside a round of what was meant to be a test.
Bodyshots had the Luton fighter down twice to hand Ryan – who turned 23 earlier this week – the perfect birthday present as he scored his second successive first-round stoppage.
Ryan’s debut year ended on a high last November when he blasted out Spaniard Damian Esquisabel inside a minute at the Ulster Hall. This came after an opening scare in April versus Kyle Hughes and certainly turned a few more heads in his favour as we came into 2022.
Encouragingly, it was a step up to six rounds in Bethnal Greene and Wood, on paper, provided a slight step-up in opposition for Ryan.
The Middlesbrough-based away fighter gave Scottish prospect Corey McCullough a scare last year, knocking him down en-route to a draw. Indeed, Wood’s 3(1)-1(0)-2 record was particularly misleading as he had had numerous other fights on the BIBA circuit which were not recorded on his BoxRec ledger.
Regardless of what Wood’s record said, the difference in levels was apparent from the start and he was no match for the European Schoolboys silver and World Junior bronze medallist.
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Much like the Esquisabel fight, southpaw Ryan targetted the body early, keeling Wood over multiple times and the English fighter’s knee eventually touched down after 30 seconds. Wood took the eight-count but was being tagged at will by the Dubliner’s backhand left and, following another body assault, he was sat down and the fight was waved off.
The quickfire win sees Ryan improve his perfect professional record to 3(2)-0 while Wood, stopped for the first time, drops to 5(1)-6(1)-2.
Afterwards the Pete Taylor-trained prospect stated his ambition for “world domination” and, hopefully, the next step on this ladder will be confirmed very shortly.
