Prospect Spotlight - Junior Middleweight Rashad Hollow, looking to shine March 21
Blog written by James “Ricky” Coward - When people mention boxing’s junior middleweight division, some of the first big names
that probably come to mind are Vernon Forest, Paul Williams, up and coming star fighters
James Kirkland and Alfredo Angulo, and a fairly new name in the mix Sergio Martinez.
These names seem to float at the top of the list in division that is quickly becoming a
talent pool much like boxing’s welterweight division. With that said, there is another
up and coming 154 pounder not familiar to many boxing fans, but who is, according to
boxing insiders an extremely talented junior middleweight contender. His name is Rashad
Holloway.
Holloway’s professional record is 9-1-0 with five knockouts and quit frankly, this young
man can fight. On Saturday night March 21st, as a co-main event on the “3 The Hard Way”
card in Cincinnati, he steps into the ring against Doel Carrasquillo 12-10-1 (10KO's),
and though his record my not suggest it, Carrasquillo is a rough and tough, boxer /
brawler that will try to test Holloway’s resolve in the ring, and attempt to stunt his
rise in the junior middleweight division.
This fight will hopefully be a “Coming out Party” for Holloway, and he needs to dance
like no one else is watching. If he “Fights his Fight”, I think he will make believers
out of a lot of boxing fans.
Rashad Holloway working with Alfredo Angulo
I have had the pleasure of watching some of Holloway’s training, he has exceptional speed in both hands, solid defensive skills and he has a lot of slick boxing moves in his arsenal. He has been a sparring partner for the likes of Gary Stark (22 - 2 8KO’s) and the above mentioned, up and coming 154lb star prospect, Alfredo Angulo (15 - 0 12KO’s). I watched his sparring work with Angulo and I was very impressed with his performance. Being a professional boxing trainer myself and having worked with numerous professional and amateur fighters, I can appreciate some of the attributes that make a prospective world class Contender
Rashad Holloway has these "World Class" attributes, coupled with the skill and
determination to succeed in the sport. He is looking to do big things in 2009 and is training
at the Wild Card boxing Gym in Hollywood, California with world renowned boxing trainer,
Freddy Roach. I think insiders would agree that with continued development, Rashad
Holloway is destined to make a BIG impact in the junior middleweight division.
Rick Coward is a professional boxing trainer and creator of the Pad Work instructional DVD which covers the basics of the "Mayweather Style" system. Catch some of his work here on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOcytWqe8pI
I saw Rashad fight in Cincinnati fight last summer and was immediately impressed with him, on a night meant to feature Aaron Pryor Jr. and Lamon Brewster.
By the way, he looks like he was giving Perro all he could handle in this sparring session.
Here's what I wrote for LP that night: "The first major fight of the night provided the best prospect for the sport, however, as Rashad Holloway (9-1) demonstrated extremely fast hands, solid defense and one-punch KO power against Junior Ramos (8-3). Holloway opened the first round with an emphatic statement, knocking Ramos down with a clean right hand. Ramos was cut in the round and didn’t put up much of a fight. He looked refreshed coming out in the second round though, and landed a few punches on Holloway. But he was eating lot of harder counterpunches for every effort. He was knocked down twice in the second round, including one fall on a jab. Holloway doesn’t catch a lot of punches on his gloves, relying more on slipping the punches to land counters. The third round was more of the same, with Ramos taking some major damage, but staying off the floor. Holloway put him away in the fourth round with a solid combination. He looked to be a pretty tough challenge for a lot of pros who aren’t very polished." It sound like we agree almost across the board on his attributes. Check out my profile for the whole story.
I love the slick boxers, if he's half of what you guys say about him I'm very interested in seeing this young prospect in the future! I'll keep my eye out for him, best of luck to him in his career, thanks James & Perk for the heads up on this guy.
Btw, he couldn't have picked a better gym to hone his skills in than the Wildcard, Freddie knows how to develop these guys & he will have plenty of good sparring partners to choose from as well ...
Blog written by James “Ricky” Coward 
