Curtis Stevens entered tonight’s middleweight bout against Saul Roman with the knowledge that a solid performance could assure him a big money title fight against Gennady Golovkin in his next appearance. His execution couldn’t have been better.
Early in round one, Stevens stunned Roman with a left hook and proceeded to unload shots, finally dropping him with a hard left hook. Roman was able to beat the count and was trying desperately to survive when a brutal counter left hook put him out cold.
So viscous was the KO that it all but put ink on the Golovkin-Stevens contract. Stevens does have legit power and assuming Golovkin-Stevens does get made, it’ll be fun while it lasts. Stevens improves to 25-3 (18KO’s) while Roman slides to 37-10 (31KO’s).
In what amounted to a stay busy fight, heavyweight Tomasz Adamek soundly outpointed the aging Dominick Guinn over 10 one-sided rounds. Adamek was initially scheduled to take on Tony Grano in a more significant fight, but a neck injury forced Grano to withdraw from the fight and Guinn took his place on short notice.
The fight between Adamek and Guinn, despite being a downgrade,turned out about as well as could be expected. Neither fighter was ever in any trouble, but Adamek was able to keep the crowd entertained by putting together 3, 4 and 5 punch combinations during each of the rounds.
Guinn, a once promising prospect who is now out of shape and in the twilight of his career, still possessed enough defense and power to keep Adamek from overwhelming him. Guinn has never been stopped and the punches he did land throughout the fight clearly kept Adamek honest.
A cut opened over Guinn’s eye in round three from an accidental headbutt but it had little effect on the fight. It was all Adamek throughout and the scores reflected it: 98-92 and 99-91 (twice) all in favor of Adamek.
Although the fight didn’t do much to raise his stock in the division, Adamek did get 10 solid rounds in and remains in place to mix it up with any of the current heavyweight contenders. His record now stands at 49-2 (29KO’s).
Guinn has become the consummate journeyman and still has enough pop in his shots to remain in the role for the foreseeable future. He drops to 34-10 (31KO’s).
If Eddie Chambers was hoping to excite people about his entrance into the cruiser weight division, his debut tonight against Thabiso Mchunu was a disaster on all counts. A lethargic Chambers seemed content to follow Mchunu around the ring, alternately posturing and flicking out the occasional jab. Mchunu did little to help, as his strategy was to counter and Chambers’lack of activity offered little to work with.
So for 30 minutes, the two circled around the ring and stared each other down. Nearly the only scoring blows were produced by Mchunu left hand counters. Each round was nearly a mirror image and few could blame Mchunu for pot-shotting his way to the biggest win of his career. Scores were 97-93 and 99-91 (twice).
Mchunu improves to 13-1 (9KO’s) and it remains to be seen how good he really is simply because Chambers looked so terrible. For Chambers, (now 36-4 18KO’s) it seems time to reassess whether or not he wants to continue to be a professional prize fighter; because his performance tonight was one of a man who has lost all interest in boxing.
Up and coming heavyweight Vyacheslav Glazkov displayed his power and annihilated journeyman Byron Polley in less than two rounds. Midway through round 1 Polley hit the canvas via a hard right hand from Glazkov. Polley rode out the 8 count on one knee but when he rose, was met from another flurry from Glazkov that put him on the canvas for the second time.
Polley survived the round but was overpowered seconds into round two. A left hook, right hand left hook combo from Glazkov dumped Polley to the seat of his pants and referee Harvey Dock waived off the fight without a count.Time of the stoppage was 30 seconds of round two. Glazkov remains unbeaten at 15-0-1 (11KO’s) while Polley slips to 25-16-1 (11KO’s).
Glazkov’s manager, Egis Klimas said after the fight that Glazkov was looking to fight Dereck Chisora in his next bout.
In a 6 round lightweight tilt, East Hartford native Joseph “Chip”Perez dropped a unanimous decision to Staten Island, NY’s Mike Brooks. Brooks opened with a strong body attack and stuck to his plan throughout the fight. Perez was busy but largely ineffective for the first 4 rounds. He picked up the pace in rounds 5 and 6, but was docked a point for an elbow in round 6 that effectively put the fight out of reach. Scores at the end were 57-56, 59-54 and 60-53 all in favor of Brooks; who now stands at 11-0 (2KO’s). Perez drops his second in a row and is now 10-3 (3KO’s).
In the opening bout of the evening undefeated junior middleweight Tony Harrison made short work of his opponent Gilbert Alex Sanchez, blitzing him out before the end of the second round. Harrison was mostly inactive during the first round and he allowed Sanchez to wing punches at his body and head with limited success.
Halfway through round 2, Harrison started sitting down on his punches and scored a delayed reaction knockdown with a jab right hand to Sanchez’s head. Sanchez was slow to rise but to his credit mounted spirited effort to get back into the fight before being dropped for good by a Harrison body shot. Referee Harvey Dock waived off the fight at 2:10 of round 2. Harrison improves to 14-0 (11KO’s) while Sancez drops to 2-3 (2KO’s).
Welterweights Jimmy Williams and Greg Jackson plodded through a 4 rounder in a fight in which neither fighter was willing to risk opening up in order to secure the win. Jackson tried counter punching for most of the fight but the strategy was ineffective because Williams was hesitant to display much more than a jab in each of the four rounds.
The result was an ugly split draw. One judge had it 39-37 for Williams but was overruled by the other two who had it even at 38-38. Both fighters remain undefeated: Williams at 4-0-1 (2KO’s) and Jackson at 3-0-1 (1KO).
