Heavyweight Monte Barrett (32-6, 18 KOs) gained his revenge last night for a prior loss, defeating Cliff Couser (26-14-2, 14 KOs) by 2nd round TKO of a scheduled six-round bout at the Paradise Theatre, in Bronx, New York. Barrett, 36, was previously stopped in the second round by Couser, 36, in July. This time, however, Barrett had little problem with Couser, dominating the fight with fast combinations before finally knocking Couser down with a barrage of punches in the 2nd round, prompting for referee Dave Fields to stop the bout at 2:16. Couser appeared exhausted after throwing only a handful of punches in the 1st round, and remained too tired to any punches in the 2nd round.
In fact, Couser only landed one punch in the 2nd round, spending most of the time either missing or taking shots from Barrett. In the first round, though, Couser landed several huge punches to the head of Barrett, and it appeared that if he hadn’t quickly tired out, he would have likely easily have knocked out the soft-chinned Barrett. As it was, Barrett simply outworked Couser, who looked like he hadn’t trained properly for the fight.
In the 2nd round, Barrett hurt Couser with a left-right combination, causing him to stagger. Instead of clinching, Couser backed up and tried to cover while Barrett unloaded on him with unanswered shots for the next minute, until finally Couser slid in between the ropes. The referee, seeing that Couser was hurt, moved in and stopped the fight at 2:16 of the 2nd round.
