Kelly comes through an absolute thriller

Ryan Kelly opens-up on the bloodied Romanian

ON paper, it looked a fairly undemanding test for Chelmsley Wood’s Commonwealth silver middleweight champ Ryan Kelly.

Opponent Ioan Alexandru Lutic had won only two of eight and appeared the perfect foil for Kelly to showcase his spiteful, smooth combinations.

On canvas – where it matters, the anticipated walkover turned into a war, a draining six round epic which saw both men dropped and 30-year-old Kelly forced to summon every ounce of his fighting resolve.

This was the best bout on the Wasserman show – and then some. This was an unexpected epic, won by the Brum champ, 57-55.

The arithmetic doesn’t do this classic justice. Kelly appeared to have finally tamed the Romanian in the fifth, a peach of a right to the solar plexus dropping Lutic in the fifth.

Yet in the breath-taking last, a left-right sent the Birmingham crowd-pleaser sprawling. He rose at four and, to his credit, blazed back.

In the dressing room, Ryan – both badly swollen hands plunged in ice buckets – gave a wry smile and said: “I’ve got to stop doing this.”

The hands – the right particularly misshapen – “went” in the second. From then on, every punch landed was purgatory. And Kelly landed plenty of punches.

“That’s the problem with guys like that,” he said. “If you get an opponent like River (River Wilson-Bent, the man Kelly beat in another thriller for the silver belt) you know what you’re preparing for. I didn’t know anything about this opponent, there were no videos of his fights.

“I was definitely buzzed, no denying that, but I got up, fought back and won.”

Respected trainer John Costello said: “One hundred per cent, I would’ve like Ryan to box more behind his jab. But I knew this was going to be tough, I knew what he (Lutic) had done in MMA.

“Listen, they won’t be queuing up to fight him.”

Lutic, who ended the contest with his left eye gashed underneath and near swollen shut, fought like a man possessed.

Switch-hitting throughout, he threw himself at Kelly from the first bell. Fatigued and ragged, there were times when Ryan appeared on the verge of halting his tormentor. Yet Lutic would soak-up the heavy right hands and fire back.

He came out guns blazing in the first and caught Kelly, who seemed surprised by the fast start, with a succession of hooks.

The whiff of an upset was in the air.

Kelly had gained his composure in the second and drilled Lutic with one heavy right hand and a brace of sickening uppercuts.

His eye bruised and bleeding, Lutic was punished in the third and rocked by a left hook. Kelly appeared to be solving the puzzle, only to be driven back by a barrage in the fifth. He hit back with a right, which froze the east European, landed a cluster of hooks, then decked Lutic with a pile-driver to the pit of the stomach.

Then came the dramatic last. Kelly was dropped in a neutral corner, yet Lutic lacked the stamina to mount a sustained follow-up.

Ryan rode the storm and was delivering his own heavy ammo by the end of the round.