Being outweighed and outgunned experience-wise meant little to Jack Littlefield at Towac Park on Saturday night, he thrilled his home town crowd by dismantling journeyman Michael Rubio to claim a second win from as many professional bouts.
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Littlefield came in well under the 71kg catch weight negotiated for the fight while Rubio didn’t make it down that far, but the two squared off anyway.
Orange’s hard-hitting up-and-comer completely outclassed his 29-year-old, Filipino-born rival to claim a unanimous points decision and maintain his unbeaten record, handing Rubio his 21st career defeat in the process.
While the victory also pushed Littlefield up the national rankings from 36th to 24th, one of the night’s undercard bouts somewhat stole the show, with Orange Hawks’ Toby Collins claiming bragging rights for his club by defeating CYMS’ Dave Stelling.
Collins took the upper hand reasonably early in the bout and eventually won via technical knockout, the stoppage 30 seconds into the third and final round sending the vocal two blues crowd on hand into raptures.
“It was bloody good to get bragging rights for Hawks,” Collins said.
“I’d been pretty confident going in but not cocky and I think the training we’d done showed in the first two rounds, the third turned into a bit of a brawl before the stoppage.
It was bloody good to get bragging rights for Hawks.
- Toby Collins
“I was pretty confident after the first round. My trainer Dave (Littlefield) sort of said ‘I reckon this is yours, you just need to go on with it’.”
It was Collins’ first foray into the ring but, in his words, “hopefully there’s a few more fights to come”.
“It was just something different really,” he said of taking the opportunity.
“But boxing had been something I’d been looking at and this gave me the motivation to actually get out and train.”
In Saturday night’s semi-main event Orange’s Darren Morris went down to Parkes’ Benny Hayes in a close, split decision.
The Australian super lightweight title they were fighting for was vacated pre-fight, after Hayes failed to make weight.
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Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
