Perfect learning fight for prospect Berry

Nyall Berry faces the press after his eight round points win

NYALL Berry, a bundle of featherweight fighting fury, learnt on Saturday night not all boxers will buckle under his incessant attacks.

On GBM’s Skydome, Coventry, show, “Non Stop” Nyall received an invaluable lesson as he marches towards titles.

Rugged Mexican Hector Garcia Dolores, who retained a deadpan expression throughout their eight rounder, gave the Chelmsley Wood 24-year-old his stiffest test in an unbeaten, 10 bout career.

Garcia, who looks a very hard individual, always responded when tagged, particularly with right uppercuts, and made Nyall, completing eight rounds for the first time, work very hard. He made Berry think, he showed him pro boxing is not all plain sailing.

And he ticked boxes for Berry. With five of his eight wins coming inside distance (he had also lost eight going into the contest), Garcia can bang. Berry comfortably took everything he threw. And Nyall showed the same intensity in the last round as he did in the first, later telling me: “I could’ve done 10 rounds, easy.”

Both chin and stamina passed the tests.

Garcia simply couldn’t match Berry’s intensity and dropped a 78-74 decision on referee Chris Dean’s scorecard.

And the man from Temoaya, a rough town in Mexico’s heartland, paid his own tribute to the Eastside boxer after the contest.

“Very powerful,” he said through an interpreter. “I don’t usually use uppercuts – not one, but he made me fight close.”

“I have to be happy,” said Berry. “I did eight rounds at a good pace and I could’ve done 10. He had a lot of boxing ability and a very good jab. A knockout would’ve been great, but I’m pleased with my performance.”

Berry drove forward from first bell to last, digging hooks to the body and drilling right hands through Garcia’s guard. Any lapse of concentration, any error was punished by the visitor who made Nyall work for every minute of his win.

Berry was caught by a right uppercut in the second and landed a powerful right of his own in the following session.

By the fifth, Nyall was showing better head movement and upped the gears from the sixth. By the seventh there was less coming back from Garcia who was pinned to the ropes and punished to the ribs.

Berry may not have gained the stoppage he wanted, but the lessons learnt from a wily opponent will serve him well as the opposition gets tougher.