COSTA MESA – Even after a short night of work, Malcolm McAllister left the ring hungry for more.
McAllister, who fights out of Long Beach, made quick work of Lanny Dardar, ending the fight in the first round to improve his record to 4-0 on Thursday’s Fight Club OC card from the The Hangar in front of a crowd of 1,511.
“I’m not completely happy with it (my performance),” he said. “I think it was pretty good. I started off a little slower than I anticipated, but once I got in there and started moving around … he also touched (with punches) more than he should have touched me.”
Fortunately for McAllister, his punches carried proved to be more dangerous than Dardar’s. McAllister started to find a home with his right hand, first to the body, then unleashing a perfect overhand right that sent Dardar to the canvas.
“When I get back to the gym, we’ll look over the video and see what was going on, so we can fix the problems so next time we come, we’re real sharp,” McAllister said.
This was the third fight of the year for McAllister. To get ready, he sparred at the tough Rock Gym in Carson, with fighters such as Hassan N’Dam, who is in preparation for his IBF middleweight title later this month. McAllister said he’s soaking up all of the knowledge he can to help in his development.
“I’m trying to learn something new every day in the gym,” he said. “If I’m not, then I’m not making progress and I’m not growing.
“I want to grow. I want to be a world champion, not just a contender. I want to be the champion when I get there.”
In the next-to-last fight of the night, Marcos Anthony Hernandez improved to 6-0 with a six-round unanimous decision victory.
Timothy Lee looked impressive in his professional debut scoring three knockdowns in the first round against Chad McKinney, leading to a TKO victory in the first fight of the night.
San Clemente’s Reece Bennett and Henry Calles fought to a majority draw in a four-round fight.
Alex Suhonosov (2-1) defeated Fullerton’s Trevor Clapper (1-1) in the first MMA fight of the night. All three judges scored the fight 29-28.
Huntington Beach’s Ozzie Alvarez got a first-round submission (via arm-triangle choke) victory in the other MMA fight against Steve Ciaccio of Irvine.
