-‘Battersea Bomber’ calls out Lennox `Too Sharp’ Allen
‘I challenged him so we will fight’
Known as the ‘Battersea Bomber’, Howard Anthony Eastman, Guyana’s Middleweight Champion and the undisputed Commonwealth and British Middleweight Champion is looking to add another title to his name in the near future.
On Saturday night at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, Eastman officially called out Lennox ‘Too Sharp’ Allen to defend the national super middleweight belt he had won only minutes earlier.
Eastman had witnessed the 24-year-old Allen beat Leon ‘The Lion’ Gilkes into submission with a second round technical knockout (TKO) to be the first national super middleweight title holder.
And, after the fight, the Berbician boldly went into the ring, took the microphone and publicly declared that he wanted to face Allen.
The two were down to meet earlier this year, but Eastman got entangled with the long hands of the law which forced the fight to be put off.
Now it seems as if the 38 year-old fighter has gotten his act together again and is ready to pick up the remnants of the fight from where it was left off.
He told reporters on Sunday that he is a fighter.
“It’s what I do best,” Eastman declared adding that his intention was to face the winner between Allen and Gilkes.
“I want to fight Allen…I’m not Gilkes you know, I’m not that man that was sprawling on the canvas there, I’m a fighter and so I challenged him and he accepted so we will fight,” said Eastman.
Asked about his opinion on facing the hard hitting youngster after seeing him fight on Sunday, Eastman chuckled and said: “Allen didn’t fight really tonight you know, but this is boxing and I’m a boxer, he’s a boxer….but this is what I do so, let’s wait and see.”
Already being more boastful than he usually is, Allen happily accepted the challenge and even declared that he wanted the fight to happen the same night.
“I would love to fight Eastman and if he wants, we can even do it now…as a matter of fact. It’s what I came back to Guyana to do in the first place. I want this to happen as soon as possible because like I said, I’m here to fight, I want to fight and I want to fight Eastman,” added Allen. One would think that with his attitude, he has been around for a long time but in fact on Sunday, ‘Too Sharp’ only moved his record to 10 wins from as many fights with six of those coming by way of knockout.
Allen is yet to face an opponent who would really trouble him and bring out his full potential and many believe that he couldn’t ask for a better person to do so than Eastman.
Eastman has fought some of the best in the business and did so with distinction. His record stands at 45 wins from 51 fights but he has six losses to his name, one of which came against Bernard Hopkins in 2005 by a unanimous points’ decision.
Eastman has fought out of England since turning pro in 1994.
Upon his return to Guyana he immediately grabbed the national middleweight title from Denny Dalton and successfully defended it with victories over former world champion Andrew ‘Six Head’ Lewis and most recently Gilkes.
This time, with Allen being a natural super middleweight fighting at 168 pounds, Eastman will be adding eight more than he normally fights at on his bid to join a list of Guyanese fighters to hold titles in separate divisions.
