Lamont Roach wanted to put on a show for his hometown fans in his first title defense, and that’s exactly what he did.
Roach made the first defense of his WBA junior lightweight title on Friday in dominant fashion, stopping tough Irish contender Feargal McCrory in eight rounds at the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Washington D.C. The bout came to a halt at the 2:51 mark, as McCrory’s head trainer Colin Morgan threw in the towel.
“I just want to be the baddest motherf—ker on the planet, man,” said an emotional Roach to the ProBox TV commentators after fighting for the first time in his home region since 2017.
“I don’t even know how to explain it right now. It just feels the best, I know that I reaped all the benefits of my hard work. I’m not just talking just to talk, like I told you guys for weeks. I’ve been training my ass off to put on a spectacular performance for the beautiful people of my town.”
The fight was the first for Roach (24-1-1, 9 knockouts) since winning the title in November with a split decision win over Hector Luis Garcia, while McCrory (16-1, 8 KOs) was getting his first opportunity at a world title.
From the outset, Roach, 28, of nearby Upper Marlboro, Md., was a level above his opponent, landing big punches on the tough McCrory, most notably with the left hook against the southpaw from Coalisland, Northern Ireland.
Roach scored the first knockdown of the fight in the third round, putting him down with a counter check hook. Roach turned up the heat even more in the fourth round, putting McCrory down twice more with body punches.
McCrory showed he didn’t make the trip down to the United States’ capital just for a paycheck, storming back in the fifth round with body punching along the ropes before punctuating the round with a right hook to the head. Roach came back strongly in the sixth, landing combinations down the middle as McCrory continued to smother Roach with nonstop pressure.
The inevitability began to set in during the seventh round when Roach opened up with combinations again in the seventh round, hurting McCrory with a left hook to the body before an uppercut buckled his legs once again. It appeared that the fight was a punch or two away from being stopped but McCrory managed to make it out of the round.
The mercy of a corner stoppage finally came in the eighth round, after Roach drilled McCrory with a right hand that nearly put him down a fourth time, followed by a few more left hooks to the body that sapped even more of his fighting spirit.
Afterwards, Roach told in-ring interviewer and former world champion Shawn Porter that he wanted to unify against the other champions in the 130 pound division.
“My next goal to conquer is unification, so any champion watching this, just know that I’m on your ass,” said Roach, who is rated no. 4 by The Ring at 130 pounds.
Lester Martinez made the move from prospect to super middleweight contender, defeating Carlos Gongora by unanimous decision in the ten-round co-featured bout. Martinez (18-0, 15 KOs) took the decision by scores of 99-91 on two cards and 100-90 on the third over Gongora, who drops to 22-3 (17 KOs), with all three losses coming in his last five bouts.
Martinez, 28, of Guatemala City, Guatemala used his right hand to punish the aging former Ecuadorian Olympian but never was able to put him down.
Earlier on the card, Jordan Roach, the younger brother of Lamont, scored a unanimous decision over Luis Domingo Hernandez Cambero to win his professional debut. Roach, 20, scored two knockdowns in the junior bantamweight bout, winning by scores of 40-34 on two cards and 40-35 on the third.