Berry blasts his way to the English belt

Team Berry celebrates the spectacular title victory

ONE wrecking ball right uppercut detonated by Nyall Berry turned what looked to be a tough night’s work into a demolition job – and earned the pocket dynamo his first belt.

With the vacant English super-bantam title on the line at York Hall, Bethnal Green, last night (Saturday), Berry flattened Lewis Frimpong with the pay-off punch in the third.

The Oxford fighter made it to his feet at six, but was gone. He lurched, like Bambi on black ice, across the ring and into the ropes. With his back to the referee, it was clear Frimpong was in no state to continue.

In his 14th fight, Chelmsley Wood’s Berry had blasted out a man who had never been dropped before and who took the current British featherweight champ the full distance.

“Nyall doesn’t know how good he is,” manager Jon Pegg said after the fine victory. He is starting to see it now.

“If he believed he was as good as we believe he is, there would be no stopping him. Winning that first belt will have done him the world of good.”

And 25-year-old Berry captured it away from home by beating a very capable boxer. Built like a pocket battleship, Frimpong had lost only one of 10 contests and collected the Southern Area title.

He gave Berry plenty to think about, setting a fast pace and applying relentless pressure before the sky fell in.

“He was causing problems,” Pegg admitted. “It was one round each going into the third and, as the away corner, we were worried it could be 2-0.

“Nyall stayed calm under pressure. I told him, ‘don’t look to land lots of shots, land the quality’. With opponents like that, you’ve got to make sure you land the big shots and hurt them.”

Victory has banished any lingering demons following Berry’s sole loss in 14 fights. Last June he was stopped in eight by Italian Francesco De Rosa for the IBF European title.

He has given Birmingham’s Eastside gym its second English title victory in nine days. Jess Barry successfully defended her featherweight crown in Cannock the previous week.

This morning, the new champ told me: “I was ecstatic last night, this morning reality is kicking in and I’m focused on the next challenge. It’s tunnel vision right now.

“I didn’t overlook him (Frimpong) at all, not at all. I will say he was better than I thought, trickier than I thought, but I knew from the first bell I was going to get to him, it was just a question of being patient.”

The next challenge will definitely be down at bantam, Pegg stressed.

“He was only two-and-a-half pounds over the bantamweight division,” he added.