Sutherland a cut above

Sutherland: Still learning

We're not playing marbles, it's a tough sport. Your opponent is going to hit you back

Darren Sutherland
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Darren Sutherland maintained his unbeaten start to life as a professional with a fourth-round stoppage of brave Ukrainian Gennadiy Rasalev.

The Irishman - a bronze medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - made it four wins from four on his first appearance at York Hall, Bethnal Green.

Referee Mark Green stepped in to end the six-round bout early with Rasalev struggling with his vision due to a nasty cut above his left eye.

The injury had happened in the previous round when he was caught with one of a plethora of accurate rights from his rival.

Even second

However, the 31-year-old from Odessa had given as good as he got in an even second, leaving Sutherland with a nasty gash of his own on the right cheek.

Perhaps thinking the job was done after dominating the opening three minutes, 'The Dazzler' was careless enough to get caught by several shots as he went away from his probing jab to get involved close up.

He revealed after the fight that the cut was a recurrence of one suffered in sparring - putting his plans to fight again in 11 days' time in doubt.

"We're not playing marbles, it's a tough sport. Your opponent is going to hit you back," Sutherland told Sky Sports afterwards.

"I had a bit of a cut earlier in sparring and it just re-opened. That played on my mind going into it. I took a few shots and the guy was game.

Keep improving

"I wanted to keep going. I'm disappointed that they stopped it because of the cut because I wanted to keep improving. I was just starting to get to him as it (the fight) was going on.

"This is only the start - I want to go on and do good things. There's going to be a lot of hard battles to come and you've just got to keep learning."

Promoter Frank Maloney admitted that Sutherland may be forced to pull out of the card scheduled for the Seaburn Centre in Sunderland on July 10.

"Looking at that (the cut) I'd say 'yes' now," he replied when asked if the damage could keep his man out of action. "But tomorrow we'll get the doctor to look at it and then make a decision in the next few days."