Odlanier Solis: “I wanted to make Austin suffer for the things he said at the press conferences leading up to the fight. I didn’t like it when he said that when he was done with me, they were going to send me back to Cuba. Now I sent him back to Cleveland where all they have are cows.
“I wasn’t tired at all. It was my strategy to fight the way I did tonight. What’s 
the worst thing that could have happened? I could have knocked him out or made him look ridiculous, which I did.”
At the post-fight press conference: “I don’t think I’m fat. What I would like to do is slap around some of the newspaper writers that say I’m fat.”
Ray Austin: “Solis will beat Vitali Klitschko. He’s accurate and has a good defense. He rests and recovers well, too. The only downside I see might be his chin.
“He showed a lot. I see him being the next WBC heavyweight champion. He’s good.”
Tavoris Cloud: “I got hit with a head butt in the second round that caused a cut over my left eye, but Zuniga was a tough guy. I knew I had better skills but he came into this fight in good shape.
“I only give my performance a “B” tonight. I will tell you I took this man seriously because I knew he would come to fight. “I want the winner of Pascal-Hopkins tomorrow night, or Chad Dawson if he ever decides he wants to fight me.”
Fulgencio Zuniga: “Both times I went down were from head butts. I thought I did enough to win. “Cloud was a strong guy, a champion and a hard puncher. But I was still proud of my performance.”
Ricardo Mayorga: “I showed tonight that I can still fight. [Michael] Walker thought he had something for me, but the outcome was never in doubt. El Matador is back.”
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
