Hall Stops Mitchell

Former World Boxing Association light heavyweight champion Richard Hall (28-7, 26 KOs) stopped former World Boxing Organization super middleweight champion Byron Mitchell (25-4-1, 18 KOs) in the 4th round last night at the Sheraton Miami Mart Hotel, in Miami, Florida. The heavy-handed Hall, 36, badly hurt Mitchell early in the first, punishing him with huge shots to the head and battering him around the ring for much of the round. Mitchell, 34, somehow survived the round, though her perhaps wished he had stayed down, as the one-sided beating continued in the next round.

Hall continued blasting away at Hall in rounds two and three, hitting him with tremendous left hands and power jabs. In the fourth round, Hall again hurt Mitchell again, this time with another monstrous left hand, dropping him to the canvas. The referee quickly moved in and halted the bout at 2:15 of the 4th round. Mitchell, whom hadn’t fought for the past four years since losing by 2nd round KO to Joe Calzaghe in 2003, made an odd choice of selecting Hall as his first opponent after such a long layoff.

Ideally, Mitchell would have perhaps been better served if he had faced a lesser opponent than the likes of Hall, as four years is a considerable amount of time for a professional athlete to take off. Even in his prime, Hall would have been a stiff challenge for Mitchell and he would have been hard pressed to beat him.