Greetings from Morgantown, West Virginia! Simons Promotions was holding a boxing card at the beautiful Waterfront Place which would feature the Mahoning Valley’s Billy Lyell squaring off against Martinus Clay of Philadelphia.   The card featured five preliminary bouts before the Lyell fight.  Four of the ten participants in those fights were from Morgantown, so there were some definite fan favorites.  Here is how the undercard went:

In a 139 lb. battle, Ronnell Green of Wheeling, West Virginia took on Tyrone Gamble of Baltimore, Maryland.  Gamble threw maybe ten punches before being knocked out in the first round.  Green drilled Gamble with a solid right to floor him for the ten count.  The opening fight lasted a grand total of a minute and seventeen seconds.

The second undercard fight featured two hometown boys locking it up as Eric Watkins and Wilton Bunn, both of Morgantown, did battle in a 195 lb. amateur tilt.  Can you imagine the in-town hype on this one?  Bunn and Watkins probably saw each other at the neighborhood Burger King a few weeks back and declared the other guy had no chance.  The all-Morgantown portion of the card was entertaining.  Bunn took the decision.

The next prelim featured two heavyweights as Ernest Gwynn of Reidsville, North Carolina and Mel Bankhead of Morgantown in a scheduled four-rounder.  An interesting sidenote, Bankhead owns a strip club in Morgantown and he definitely received the loudest applause to this point.  The proprietor of Lady Godiva managed to score a first-round TKO with a strong boy punch that doubled up Gwynn.

The next bout was a battle at 154.  Vance Garvey (black trunks) of Indianapolis, Indiana did battle with Matt Berkshire of, you guessed it, Morgantown.  Berkshire floored Garvey, knocking out his mouthpiece (above) in the third but to his credit, Garvey got up and stormed back in the fourth.  From a boxing perspective, it was definitely the best match to this point of the card.  Berkshire cut Garvey in the fifth but took a solid shot himself to end the round.  In the eighth and final round, Berkshire cemented the win with a forceful knockdown.  Give Garvey credit for getting up again, but in the end the judges saw the fight as a majority draw.  Berkshire got the short end of the stick in this one.

The last undercard fight featured heavyweights Octavius Smith of Indianapolis and Jason “Ironman” Bergman of Washington, PA.  Bergman made short work of Smith, flooring him twice in the round before the ref halted the contest.