Ringside by Pattee Mak
April 20, 2013 – NEW YORK
Tyson Fury just didn’t want to go the scheduled 12 rounds in this heavyweight bout against Steve Cunningham in an eliminator for the #2 heavyweight spot at the IBF, so he made it a short lived affair by stopping Cunningham, 2 minutes, 55 seconds into the 7th round.
Fury from Manchester, United Kingdom making his US debut banged hard on Cunningham’s gloves during the pre-fight introductions and outweighed him by 44 pounds and at 6′ 9” with a 3 inch reach advantage towered over Cunningham like a giant. Cunningham on the other hand at 6′ 3″ looked chiseled and tight in the ring weighing in at a rock solid 210 pounds, but he was determined to stop Fury which he nearly did by landing an overhand right which dropped Fury in the 2nd round. Fury managed to beat that count and survived the round and the fight despite Cunningham repeatedly trying to land the overhand right again to end the fight.
In the 5th Fury had a point taken away from him by referee Eddie Cotton for head butting. At the end of the 5th and before the 6th round, Fury regained some of his confidence and started to entertain the audience by dancing in the ring. By then the tables had turned against Cunningham as Fury had fully recovered from the shock knockdown in the 2nd round.
In the 7th round, Cunningham was hurt when Fury landed a right upper cut and moments later Fury landed a right hook that dropped Cunningham to the canvas at 2 minutes and 55 seconds of the round to win the fight.
Tyson Fury improved his record to 21-0-0, 15 KOs and “UCC” Steve Cunningham fell to 25-6-0, 12 KOs.
The televised co-main event between middleweights Curtis “Showtime” Stevens of Brooklyn, New York and Derrick “Superman” Findley of Chicago, Illinois however went the distance of eight rounds, but Stevens controlled most of the action landing some great right and left hooks. However in 3rd round Findley landed a hard body shot to Stevens rib cage and in the 7th it appeared Findley dropped Stevens due to the referee’s count but from where I was sitting I couldn’t tell if it was a slip.
The judges scored it in favor of Stevens 78-74, 78-74 and 79-73 and Curtis “Showtime” Stevens improved his record to 24-3, 17 KOs while Derrick “Superman” Findley fell to 20-10, 13 KOs.
Other bouts of the evening:
4 rounds: Heavyweights Adam Kownacki vs. Calbert Lewis. Winner Kownacki by stoppage, one minute, 48 seconds into round 2.
4 rounds: Heavyweights Hughie Fury vs. Alex Rozman. Winner Fury. The referee Danny Schiavone called a halt to the fight 2 minutes, 26 seconds into round 1.
6 rounds: Lightweights Karl “Dynamite” Dargan vs. Edward Valdez. Winner Dargan. Valdez injured his hand in round 2 and was unable to continue.
6 rounds: Cruiserweights Sevdail “The Illyrian” Sherifi vs. Josh “The Juice” Harris. Winner Harris by TKO, 19 seconds into round 5.
The event was held live on NBC on Saturday afternoon at The Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York in front of a packed house with Nicholas Rodriguez one of the contestants in the current ongoing season of American Idol on hand to sing the national anthem. The event was promoted by Main Events and Hennessy Sports.
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.
