In a rare
night of championship-level boxing at the
Cincinnati
Garden,
former heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster captured the NABA championship belt
with a fifth-round knockout of Danny Batchelder. For the undercard, supper
middleweight Aaron Pryor, Jr. demolished an overmatched opponent in Dante
Craig, to keep his undefeated streak going.
Brewster
looked very rusty at the first bell. He seemed to have trouble letting go of
the big right hand that dropped Wladamir Klitschko at one point in his career.
Batchelder didn’t do a lot offensively, but was continually smacking Brewster
in the face with a relatively quick jab. Brewster was telegraphing every right
hand, and Batchelder was doing a good job slipping almost every one. Batchelder
moved around the ring, winging jabs, but mostly staying on his horse. It was
slow action for the first four rounds of the fight, and Brewster could have
been behind 40-36 on a judge’s scorecard, as he was on mine. But the only thing
that hadn’t happened was Brewster landing the right hand. Just as I told my old
man, “if he would double that jab, he could land the right,” Brewster finally
did exactly that, dropping a bomb right below the left ear of Batchelder. He
went down like a man poleaxed, totally flat on his face up until the count of
five, and eventually being counted out by the referee.
Aaron
Pryor, Jr. Dispatched his opponent Dante Craig with very little opposition in
the fight before Brewster’s dramatic KO. Craig offered fewer than 10 punches a
round, but it was a little understandable, as Pryor 6'4 frame offered him a
considerable reach advantage. Pryor, of
Cincinnati,
landed his hardest shots over and over again, but the pop that made his father
so feared wasn’t evident. Finally, the judge stopped the onslaught in the third
round due to Craig’s inability to fire back.
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.
