For the first time in his professional career, Tyson Cave performed for 10 rounds against a determined opponent. For the first time, he got stung to the head and withstood some serious body shots when caught against the ropes. And at the end of the night, for the first time, he became the Canadian Superbantamweight Champion by virtue of a unanimous decision victory over a game Steve Cannell in a tough fight which this writer scored a little bit closer than the judges. The judges scores were 100-90, 99-91 and 97-93, while I scored it 96-94, Cave. With this win, Cave’s record moves to 9-0 while Cannell drops to 3-3-3.

Throughout the bout, and particularly in the early rounds, Cave’s movement and elusiveness proved to be a real challenge for Cannell, as the new champ danced around the ring shooting off jabs and uppercuts from all angles. He showed off a sneaky left hand lead and several good counter right hands when Cannell got within range. Cannell was chasing Cave trying to catch him when Cave nailed him with a multi-punch flurry near the end of the 2nd round.

Cannell came out much more aggressively in the 3rd round and scored with a right hand lead to the head. Cave’s timing was just a tad better at this point and he scored with a counter right and unleashed a pair of right hooks to Cannell’s body before scoring with a jab. Cannell was trying to rough Cave up at every opportunity and was cautioned twice for punching behind the head. Lots of punches were being thrown but the large majority of them were missed or blocked until the end of the round when Cannell peppered Cave with his own 5-punch combo of lefts and right hooks.

Cannell came out with purpose to start round 4 and immediately missed with a right hook. Cave landed a right uppercut which was answered with a solid right hook from Cannell. Cannell just missed with a right hand and Cave replied with a counter left to the jaw and finished with a stiff right uppercut, a punch he was obviously using with some success. Midway through this round, Cannell began to find the range for the first time with any degree of consistency. He scored with a combination hook to the head and body which got Cave’s attention. Cave landed a pair of combinations to try to regain his scoring advantage but Cannell caught him along the ropes and scored with a pair of left hooks to the body and a good right to the head. This was easily Cannell’s best round of the fight.

Cave was bouncing around the ring with Cannell ever the stalker to begin round 5. Cave’s right uppercut landed again before Cannell caught him against the ropes and landed a perfect left hook to the body and a strong right hand to the head. Cave was trying to fend him off by throwing his right jab/straight left combination but Cannell was walking right through them now and scored with his own combination featuring a left hook to the body. A solid exchange of right hands brought a rise out of the crowd as did a crisp 4-punch combination from Cannell which landed upstairs and downstairs. Cave scored with a nice jab to the chin and they closed the round with an entertaining exchange of lefts and rights.

Cannell turned up the aggression a notch at the bell for round 6 and landed a sharp left jab. While Cave continued to use the entire ring to his advantage, Cannell started to rush in which exposed him to Cave’s jabs and counters. Cannell got in close and scored with a left hook to Cave’s head which seemed to light a fire under Cave. They exchanged left hooks before Cave fired off a nice right/left combination to Cannell’s head. Cannell, again, caught his man against the ropes and landed a hard right to Cave’s jaw. Cave returned to the centre of the ring and they exchanged several solid combinations which was punctuated by a short right hand to the head of Cave. This was a great round.

Cave started round 7 looking to regain his rhythm. He nailed his foe with a stiff right/left to the head before Cannell caught up with him and landed a solid right hook to the body. Once again, and it was starting to become a regularity, Cannell caught Cave against the ropes and landed a nice left/right combination to the head. Cave appeared to want to engage from this position and Cannell obliged by landing more shots with both hands while Cave had his back against the ropes. When Cave got away from the ropes, there was a lot of missed or blocked punches from each guy. This close round ended with Cave dancing his way back to the corner.

Round 8 opened with Cave landing a right to the head and then a counter right to the jaw. Cannell’s face was beginning to show abrasions around the eyes as the price to pay for getting in close enough to throw his shots while Cave had a mouse under his right eye. Cannell was picking off most of Cave’s punches while Cave was trying to keep his distance. Cave was throwing in bunches but wasn’t finding the range with great regularity and Cannell was throwing over the top whenever he got close enough to do any damage. This round was a real chess match.

Cannell rushed his man to start round 9 and missed with two left hands. Cave peppered him with a right/left/right combination and followed with a nice right hook to Cannell’s body. Cannell forced Cave up against the ropes and landed two strong combinations before Cave was able to wiggle his way off the ropes and landed a solid left hook to Cannell’s head. This was another great round which featured a lot of infighting as Cannell was looking for. The only problem for him seemed to be that when he was inside and in position to do some damage, he was often missing as Cave bounced in and out, which appeared to throw off Cannell’s timing.

The final round began with Cannell loading up on his shots. He meant business by throwing bombs while the ever mobile Cave was throwing quick left/right combinations to try to keep Cannell at bay. Cannell was able to get inside and scored with a couple hooks and a stiff right cross to Cave’s head, but Cave was fighting bravely and fired right back with jabs and uppercuts. Cannell was really forcing the issue and landed a clean left/right to the head before pinning Cave on the ropes where there was a long exchange which brought the crowd to their feet. With 10 seconds remaining in the fight, they let fly a series of haymakers with no regard given to defense whatsoever.

When the decision was announced, Cave dropped to his knees and was overcome with emotion. Afterwards, when I caught up with him in his dressing room, he said “this feeling is indescribable. Me and Wayne (Gordon) talked earlier about being a champion from Nova Scotia and what it means to be mentioned in the same breath as greats like Chris Clarke, Ricky Anderson, Dave Downey and all the others. This is a very emotional time for me and my family.” In reply to my question about how it felt to go 10 rounds, he said “I told everyone that I could go 10. I trained really hard for this fight because I knew I would have to. It’s a lot more demanding then going 6 rounds for sure. There’s more pressure to win especially with the fight being here in Halifax and being for the title and all.” When asked about his opponent, he was quick to respond. “Steve Cannell is a helluva warrior. I hit him hard with some of those uppercuts and he came right back at me. I would go to war with him on my side in a second. He’s one tough dude.” When I posed the question of the potential for a rematch, Cave said “I would definitely like to offer Steve a rematch. He deserves it…but I want Hayward…I gotta beat him first.”

Understandably dejected in his dressing room, Steve Cannell said “I thought the decision was out to lunch. We thought the fight was even after 6 rounds, so for someone to score the fight with Cave winning every round is clearly an issue for me…I mean that’s just nuts. I would like a rematch…I mean you always want another shot but I would like a fair shake with the scoring. I’m pretty sure that if I walked in here tonight as the champion, I would have retained the belt. It seems that they gave him more credit for running than they gave me for pressing the issue and trying to make a fight. Sure he’s hard to hit and moves around the ring very well but that is not landing any clean shots. In fact, I was able to pick a lot of his punches off with my gloves and arms. Perhaps it just wasn’t obvious enough to them.”

In the other professional bout, Juan “The Bomb” Sanchez made short work of Hamilton’s Adam Rochon. Sanchez was a virtual hooking machine as he bombed away to the visitor’s body, and despite surviving a 2nd round knockdown which some observers felt was a trip, he continually jabbed his way inside and then displayed some vicious hooks to the body. Sanchez scored a knockdown of his own in the 3rd round with a solid left hook which took the wind away from Rochon, and he threw thunderous hooks for the remainder of the bout until the referee waved the fight off at 2:11 of the 4th round. With the win, Sanchez moves his record to 3-3-1 while Rochon slides to 0-6.

Attendance was an estimated 2,000.

If you wish to contact the author of this article, email Cecil Wright at FightNews Canada