By David Selwyn and Pattee Mak
On Saturday, July 9, 2011, live professional boxing was promoted by Gossen Tutor in association with Caesars Atlantic City and was televised on HBO’s Boxing After Dark.
This event was held at Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey. If you thought it was hot outside on the boardwalk, you should have been in here. There were 9 bouts on this card.
The 12 round Jr. Middleweight main event featured two southpaw, Paul “The Punisher” Williams (40-2-0, 27 Kos) of Aiken, South Carolina against Erislandy Lara (15-1-1, 10 Kos) of Miami, Florida.
Round 1 Lara pushed Williams to the canvas and Lara definitely won Round 1 due to out landing more punches. Round 2 Williams is not using his extreme reach advantage. Round 4 Williams hit Lara below the belt. Williams was hitting and holding Laro. Williams landed a nice left hook at the end of round 4.
This was the first good round for Williams. Round 5, Williams is the busier fighter in this round and a cut appears on Williams’s left check due to an accidental head butt. In the later rounds Williams showed up in the ring and out boxed Laro. Laro’s Left side of the face, above his left eye appears to be extremely swollen.
In the 12th round, Laro pushes Williams into the ropes. The judges scored the fight 114-114, 115-114, 116-114, by majority decision Paul “The Punisher” Williams wins this match.
Other bouts of the evening:
Super bantamweights Akifumi Shimoda vs. Rico Ramos. Shimoda brought his fans to this 12 round fight. It appears to me that Shimoda, being light on his feet was controlling most of the rounds. In round 5, Ramos was cut in the right eye due to a head butt. In round 6, Ramos hit Shimoda with a left hook and staggered him a bit. What a fantastic job Ramos’s cut man did job stopping the cut. In round 7, Ramos hit Shimoda with a devastatingly left hook. Shimoda staggered trying to get up and he fell back onto the canvas. The time 2 minutes 46 minutes by way of knocked out. Rico Ramos was crowned the new WBA super bantamweight champ.
Heavyweights Chris “The Nightmare” Arreola vs. Friday “The 13th” Ahunanya. In round 4, Arreola hit Ahunanya with a couple of rabbit punches, the referee former heavyweight contender, Randy Newman didn’t call it. At the end of Round 4, Ahunanya is bleeding from his nose. In the 5th round, Ahunanya started with a few good left hooks. Ahunanya retreated to the ropes and Arreola landed a few good punches and stole the round. So far it’s been a lackluster fight. At the end of round 7th, Arreola had Ahunanya up against the ropes and unleashed his fury on him. It’s amazing after a few good punches that Ahunanya went the distance. 100-90, 99-91, 99-91. Arreola won by unanimous decision.
Featherweights Jhonny Gonzalez vs. Tomas Villa. This 12 round heavyweight fight was for the WBC featherweight championship. 49 seconds into round 4, the referee stopped the fight and Gonzalez won by TKO and he’s STILL the WBC featherweight champ!
Heavyweight John Lenox vs. Donnie “The Diesel” Crawford. In the 2nd round Lennox knocked Crawford to the canvas. Crawford continued fighting, with back and forth punches for the remainder of round 2. Lennox won TKO in round 4 at 2 minutes and 11 seconds in the round.
Middleweight Brandon Quarles vs. Corey Preston. This 4 round fight went the distance. It came down to the judge’s scorecard. The judges scored it 40-36, 39-37 in favor of Quarles and 39-37 in favor of Preston. The split decision went to Quarles.
Light middleweight Thomas “Cornflake” Lamanna vs. Reggie “The Street Fighter” Jenkins. In the 1st round Lamanna knocked Jenkins to the canvas. Jenkins got back on his feet. At 2 min, 14 seconds the referee stopped the match in the 1st round of 4. Lamanna won by TKO.
Middleweight Philip “the Mongoose” McCants vs. Dennis “Momma’s Boy” Douglin. The judges scored this 6 round fight 58-56, 60-54 and 60-54. Winner by unanimous decision Dennis Douglin.
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.
