Andrade & Bradley Take Montreal By Storm
One was dropped twice and one dropped his foe twice, but both came out on top when the decisions were read and both Timothy Bradley & Librado Andrade gave the 7,500 plus in the crowd more than their fair share of thrills and spills.
Contrary to the “been in the business so long that time has passed them by ” experts, the fans in Montreal came out in droves to witness the Showtime televised card as well as a sweet under card that featured Adrienne Diacanou in his first appearance in quite some time. With little more than their own bloated egos these “experts” predicted a flop in Canada and the truth is…once again were dead wrong.
Look…Montreal is a great fight town and with Interbox & Gym serving as hometown promoters you can rest assured this town will be rockin’ & sockin’ before the year is out and you might want to pencil in the Bute vs. Andrade rematch as a reason to head to Montreal this winter.
As to the main events, while going down twice, with the first one looking to take his head off, Bradley was impressive with his focus and aggression. To stay calm during those heated moments is a testament to his Champions heart and he can hold those belts up in his arms proudly. In the meantime, Kendall Holt should have been in the driver seat but due to his lack of aggression and maybe some over confident fans in the peanut gallery leading him to believe everything was OK, Holt allowed this one to slip through his fingers like a fistful of sand.
No doubt the majority of the fans in the house were there to see their adopted son Librado Andrade go up against Vitali Tsypko with the winner becoming the number one mandatory for IBF super middle champ Lucien Bute, who also has been adopted by Montreals fans. With a chance at a rematch of their controversial fight in the balance, it was clear the house, which included Bute himself, was pulling for an Andrade victory.
They would not be let down.
Andrade came out guns blazing from the opening bell and with the tough Tsypko doing his best this fight was a crowd pleaser that had few lapses in the action. Andrade put Tsypko down twice but the hard as nails fighter made it to the final bell but came up on the short end of a wide unanimous decision.
My thanks go out to Librado and Golden Boy for making my trip to Montreal possible. Likewise I would like to thank everyone at Interbox from Ian Edery and David Messier for their hospitality. Also a big shout out to The Bell Center’s Michal Wieglus for securing a great vantage point for us.
With that brief report aside I am heading home and will have more thoughts plus a giant photo gallery of the night from top to (ahem) bottom.
