The greatest pound-for-pound boxer, perhaps of all-time, fought on pay-per-view last weekend and chances are you didn’t know it was happening. Maybe it’s because Showtime and HBO wouldn’t pick the fight up. Maybe it’s because the fight was taking place in Boise, Idaho, a place best known for potatoes and the 2002 Golden Thong Award Winner. Maybe it’s because the marquee name in the bout did absolutely nothing to promote his own fight. Or just maybe the aforementioned main eventer was embarrassed to be in this current position and wanted as few people to know about it as possible.
Roy Jones Jr. vs. Prince Badi Ajamu
A little over 2,000 people turned out to watch Roy Jones Jr’s attempt at salvaging a once dominating career. After beating the likes of James Toney, Bernard Hopkins, John Ruiz, and Virgil Hill during his run as the pound-for-pound best, Jones had lost his last three fights. Ajamu had no business being in the ring with Junior. Roy needs to understand that if he’s relegated to fighting guys like Ajamu then he shouldn’t be fighting at all. Prince Badi Ajamu hails from Camden, New Jersey, so I’m not too sure where his sovereignty lies.
Ajamu must have watched tape of Glen Johnson’s win over Jones in 2004. Like Johnson, Ajamu stormed at Jones from the opening bell going for a knockout. While Jones was rocked a few times in the first round, he never went down and seemed to maintain his composure. Ajamu tried more of the same in the second round. Jones had his opponent’s flurries timed and countered with vicious body shots. Prince Ajamu was losing energy fast as well as rounds. By the fourth round, Ajamu was gassed and becoming desperate.
To his credit, Ajamu was taking the body blows from Jones very well. He just wasn’t very accurate with his own body blows. Ajamu was warned for low blows in the fourth and sixth rounds. In the seventh round, Ajamu was deducted two points for low blows and was again deducted a point for a low blow in the eighth round. The referee could have stopped the fight at this point and probably should have, but decided to let it go on. All three judges scored the fight 119-106 for Roy Jones, Jr.
Roy Jones never seemed to lack confidence when he was fighting in his prime. This fight was hand-picked as a confidence builder for the 37 year-old fighter and seemingly worked as planned. Immediately after going twelve rounds with an average fighter, Jones calls out Joe Calzaghe, the undisputed super middleweight champion that dominated Jeff Lacy in March. Roy is in for a rude awakening there but that fight won’t likely happen, and I’m pretty sure Roy knows it. Most likely on deck for Roy is a light heavyweight title fight against the winner of Glen Johnson and Clinton Woods. Johnson holds a knockout win over Jones so a rematch with him would be the most intriguing fight.
Vivian Harris vs. Stevie Johnston
Vivian Harris was supposed to fight undefeated light welterweight prospect Mike Arnaoutis in HBO’s Boxing After Dark main event. However, two weeks before the bout was to take place, Arnaoutis got injured during his training. Former world lightweight champion Stevie Johnston stepped in Arnaoutis’ place and took on the hard-hitting Harris in an attempt to gain some recognition in the boxing world once again.
Johnston is an easy guy to root for. He was a champion that took on all challengers. He shows his heart in every fight. He’s currently making a comeback after being involved in a bad car wreck that left him inactive for two years. As much as I or anyone else wanted Johnston to win on Saturday night, he was simply overmatched by a stronger man. Harris knocked Johnston down twice in the first round, once in the fourth round, and once again in the 7th round. Not only did Johnston get up after each knockdown, he never showed any loss of composure and kept coming at Harris. Johnston was attempting to out-box Harris but Harris was remaining patient and landing his counter power shots. The referee officially stopped the fight in the seventh round when Johnston was cut over both eyes and not properly defending himself.
This was a big win for Vivian Harris, who is looking to get back the world light welterweight title he lost last year to Carlos Maussa. Maussa later lost that title to Ricky Hatton and I don’t think Harris is quite ready for that challenge. A rescheduling of the fight with Mike Arnaoutis would be a good idea or perhaps a rematch with Maussa, just to avenge the loss. Whomever he fights, Harris is an exciting puncher that is a pleasure to watch.
Zsolt Erdei vs. Thomas Ulrich
The WBO Light Heavyweight title was on the line in Germany this past weekend as undefeated champion Zsolt Erdei of Hungary defended against Thomas Ulrich from Germany. This was Erdei’s sixth defense of his title and Erdei’s second chance at becoming a world champion. Erdei lost his first attempt to Poland’s Tomasz Adamek last year.
Zsolt Erdei dominated this fight, as you can tell by the post-fight photo above. You will recognize Erdei as the unmarked fighter with the belt around his waist. I wonder why Ulrich is giving a thumbs up despite losing a unanimous decision and sporting quite a shiner? Ulrich would be my favorite boxer ever if he were pouting in this picture and giving a thumbs down. Really, that’s how he should be feeling.
Ulrich started the fight strong until the slicker boxer Erdei started landing his jab with frequency in the fourth round. Ulrich tried to get aggressive but Erdei’s defense was too good on this night. A late flurry proved ineffective for Ulrich as Erdei still had enough quickness to evade Ulrich’s desperate knockout attempts.
There seems to be a continental divide in the light heavyweight division. It would be nice to see Erdei fight Tarver or Roy Jones Jr, but that’s likely not going to happen. Erdei will probably get major interest from the winner of the Tomasz Adamek/Paul Briggs fight in October. The Adamek/Briggs rematch is scheduled for HBO and their first fight was action-packed. This will be a good way to give the international light heavyweights some exposure, as they will be the ones carrying the division in the future. That is, unless American Chad Dawson has anything to say about it.
Results From Last Week
– Gary Balletto defeated Aaron Torres by split decision in the third bout on The Contender.
– David Tua knocked Edward Gutierrez out in the fourth round of their heavyweight fight.
– Emanuel Steward is the best trainer in the world. His fighter, Jonathon Banks, was knocked down twice in the first round against Eliseo Castillo. Not only did Banks survive that round, but Steward set forth a new plan that allowed Banks to knock Castillo out in the fourth round.
– Silvio Branco won a unanimous decision over Manny Siaca in a light heavyweight contest.
– Michele Piccirillo forced Luca Messi to quit in the 11th round. Those are two dudes, by the way.
– Almazbek “Kid Diamond” Raiymkulov scored a 4th round TKO over Antonio Wong when he floored the fellow lightweight with a body shot.
– Mohammad Said was the victim of a 9th round TKO in his bout with Anthony Thompson.
– Kelly Pavlik added another win to his undefeated record when he stopped Bronco McKart in the 6th round.
– Sultan Ibragimov battled Ray Austin to a draw. The winner was to receive a title shot against Wladimir Klitschko. Now it seems the two will have a rematch.
– Cassius Baloyi lost his newly won IBF and IBO Super Featherweight titles to Gairy St. Clair in South Africa. Baloyi never deserved the titles in the first place so it’s good to see his title reign was short-lived.
– Joshua Clottey eked out a majority decision over Richard Gutierrez. Before the fight it was rumored the winner will face Antonio Margarito in December. We’ll see.
– 22-year-old Rodolfo Lopez captured the WBC Featherweight title when he upset Takashi Koshimoto with a 7th round TKO.
10 McChickens in One Night Part II
As you most certainly read last week, I reluctantly accepted the mission of eating ten McChickens for dinner. This is the rest of my story…
It’s off to McDonald’s, but first I need to put a shirt and some pants on. I announce my order of 10 McChickens into the drive-thru speaker. It seems as though McDonald’s had yet to catch wind of this attempt of mine, as the confirmation screen read 10-Piece McNuggets. Surely they didn’t just hear a single person order ten sandwiches. He must have meant nuggets.
“No ma’am”, I said. “That’s ten McChickens, not nuggets. I want the sandwiches.” After a pause and a huge cloud of shame I figured it’s time to be honest with my drive-thru attendant.
“Yeah, I’m just trying to see if it can be done.”
There was no response. I got my $10.60 ready and approached the second window. I half-expected a line of fry cooks and cashiers to be lined up at the exit giving me slow-motion signs of encouragement like they do in the movies. Alas, that was not to be. They handed me a barrel of sandwiches and instructed me to have a nice day.
“I see no way that I can’t,” was my ominous reply.
I hadn’t eaten all day so when I got home I pounded some McChickens. I was eating them as if they really were McNuggets. The phone would ring every ten minutes or so to get an update on my progress. Some of the guys met up at one guys house so they could all be together when news came in. I wish I was making that up.
The first five went down easy and I felt on top of the world. Two more sandwiches went down and I suddenly hit a wall. I ate seven McChickens in thirty minutes, which included stops to answer the never-ending ringing of the phone. If I were eating until I was full, this is where I would have stopped. But this was no ordinary dinner. I had people counting on me. And more importantly, I wasn’t about to waste $3.18 on uneaten sandwiches. It took me about 40 minutes to take the final three down and I assure you they were not McTasty. Somewhere during my battle I lost my pants but those are the casualties of war.
So here we are, 10 McChickens and 70 minutes later and I couldn’t feel any more like crap. My roommate looked up the calorie count on the Internet but I’ve got so much processed mayonnaise in my system that my brain can’t comprehend the figures. He’s moved on to informing me the total fat grams but I can’t hear his numbers over my loud groans of agony.
Overall, I was pleased with my show of will power and endurance. Those are the things that are going to come in handy when I’m putting down two whole pizzas.
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