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Photo credit: James Bartosik |
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The encounter between Singapore’s Bryan Woon and Yorkshire’s Ricky Brown was the pick of the bunch - a battle that left the Scala crowd gasping in disbelief. The boxing rounds between these two gladiators were action-packed  but evenly matched throughout and the winner was always going to emerge from the rounds of chess - or so it seemed.
Both competitors established an early defensive strategy but by round 5, the clock was ticking against Brown with the Yorkshire man having less then 4 minutes on the clock versus Woon’s precious 7 minutes.  However despite the superior time difference, Brown looked to have ground out an advantage which the Singaporean did well to resist.
Then in round 7, Woon began to take control, regaining a queen, as he put Brown on the back foot. The Singaporean was now in complete command and with his eyes fixed  on glory he seemed certain to secure an incredible checkmate win. But at the last moment, calamity! With scant material on the board Brown found himself with no legal moves and not being in check, the referee called for the game to finish in a stalemate.
The Scala crowd looked on in amazement at what they had just witnessed, Woon somehow scraping a draw from the clutches of victory. It was however the most appropriate of outcomes - the entire contest, boxing included, was a well fought out game of strategic chess. There was no clear winner in the majority of the rounds as each man countered and probed waiting for the other to slip up.
So whilst both combatants will no-doubt be disappointed with the result from a personal perspective nobody deserved to lose a contest that will be remembered long after Saturday night, and that will go down in the annals of chessboxing history. |
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