Stewart credits God, hard work, strategy in TKO win

The Caribbean Boxing Organisation’s Pro/Am card lit up the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) on Saturday night with the Guyana v Venezuela bout being the main attraction.
Laured “The Lion” Stewart entered the squared circle against the much-more experienced Williams Ocando of neighbouring Venezuela, oozing confidence.
It took Stewart six rounds of the scheduled eight-round cruiserweight bout to defeat his opponent, as Referee Ian Jardine stopped the contest, with Ocando already being floored in the earlier rounds by Stewart.
Stewart later divulged his strategy for the fight and how that evolved as the bout went on.
He disclosed that the plan was to “be patient, make him miss, burn him out in the first three rounds and pick the pace up after. That’s what we did.

“I can tell he was breathing hard from his mouth and the stomach. The corner keep saying ‘go to the body’, then Keevin kept saying both hands. So, I started going both hands and I realised he started dropping his elbows. So, I knew once I got the room, I’ll loose those shots and I knew as the rounds go on, he was going to become more vulnerable,” the pugilist further detailed.
In assessing the Venezuelan’s approach to the bout, Stewart noted he was unfazed by his opponent’s tactics.
“No, he was doing a lot of stuff like using his weight, pulling you down, squeezing your head; I know that was a part of the game. So, once he was doing it, I was just trying to get the referee to see what he was doing, so he could step in, but other than that, there was nothing,” “The Lion” related.
He later shared some motivating words that kept him going in the fight.
“Hard work pays off. There’s no road that is too long and there’s no giant that is too big. If you have belief in yourself and you work hard, anything you can achieve and you don’t have to bow or bend to get it,” Stewart expressed.
Hungry for more success, Stewart went on to reveal that he would be taking on whatever came next.
“First of all, we’re going to submit our will to God, but anything line up and the price is right, we’re professionals first, so, we’re going to take it: anything that lines up,” he told media operatives.
In other results on the night, Guyana’s Septon Barton fell to Jamaica’s Daniel Hilton in the lightweight class, Trinidad and Tobago’s Shakir Garcia got the better of Guyana’s Kevin Isaacs in the featherweight division, but Jamal Eastman turned things around for Guyana with a welterweight victory over Suriname’s Edino Gljisberg, Imran Khan pummeled Charwin Estwick for a Referee Stops Contest (RSC) decision while James Moore made a dominant return with a cruiserweight victory over Joel McRae.
Suriname’s Mitchell Wielson had the quickest win of the night, forcing a technical knockout (TKO) just 54 seconds into his contest with Grenada’s Rickenson Henry.
To cap off the night’s excitement, Terrance Greene was determined to be the celebrity champion after Bradley “Doggie” Sampson failed to show.