DEVON ‘Concrete’ Moncrieffe made hard work of making it to the semi-final round of the 2015 Wray & Nephew White Rum Contender Boxing Series with a unanimous decision over Jermaine ‘Cross Breed’ Bowen at the Chinese Benevolent Association Auditorium on Wednesday night.

His fans must have been relieved with the decision when all three judges — Clifford Brown, Lindel Iron and Peter Richards — came up with deadlocked scores of 58-56 in favour of Moncrieffe.

But considering the gulf of experience between the boxers, it was either that Bowen has improved tremendously overnight from his last fight, or Moncrieffe has a lot of work to do in his next fights if he really wants to get a second bite of the cherry.

Bowen showed glimpses of what he should have been doing on a consistent basis throughout the fight: that is, using his nine inches of reach to advantageous effect by out-jabbing Moncrieffe in the third round. He utilised this element to such great effect it won for him the round, but thereafter, he went into hiding and shelved his most potent weapon in the fight.

Bowen did admit after that “I was tired and could not keep up” what he started in the third round.

This situation came about mostly from the fact that he had to lose seven pounds before the fight, and that he had to break his training programme when another boxer was scheduled to fight Moncrieffe in his place, hence coming up “short on conditioning”.

Moncrieffe with 11 fights and Bowen with three clearly indicated the gap in experience, therefore more was expected from the elder fighter, especially in the latter rounds when Bowen showed that he was visibly tired after such an exciting third round.

This is especially so, since it was his last fight before joining the elite group of four in the semi-final stages of what is left of the 16 professional boxers from Jamaica and the Caribbean who started the programme.

Bowen had to be revived in the ring on debut in the Wray & Nephew Contender Series two years ago, while Moncrieffe went on to pocket the coveted package of $2,000,000 and the title of Jamaica’s Ultimate Middleweight Contender that was up for grabs, and is seeking a repeat.

Kemahl Russell, Tsetsi Davis and Richard “Frog” Holmes have earlier booked their places in the semi-finals.