In a battle of journeyman super middleweight fighters, Louis Sargeant (9-11, 5 KOs) stopped 40 year-old Darrell Woods (26-12, 18 KOs) in the fourth round on Friday night at the River Rock Casino, in Richmond, British Columbia. Woods, who previously was stopped in the 1st round by super middleweight contender Allan Green in July, took tremendous punishment from Sargeant all fight long, enough so that the referee Robert Howard had decided he’d seen enough and halted the fight following the 4th round.
Woods, at 6’2″, he literally towered over the 5’8″ Sargeant, but unfortunately Woods failed to use his height to his adantage, allowing the shorter Sargeant to fight him on the inside for much of the fight. Far worse, however, was Woods’, a fighter who fights out of the orthodox – right handed style – style, decision to fight the first two rounds as a southpaw. It was a disastrous decision, as Woods was hit repeatedly by Sargeant from the first first moments of the fight, and was dropped – and badly hurt by a right hand from Sargent late in the 1st round.
Woods never seem to recover from that right hand, as his legs appeared to be like rubber in the subsequent rounds of the fight. In the 2nd round, Sargeant, 36, continued to land very hard shots, mostly to the head, of Woods, who was still foolishly fighting as a southpaw in this round. Towards the end of the round, Woods backed up to the ropes and absorbed a fire storm of punches from Sargeant. In fully expected the fight to be stopped at this point, as Woods’ head was being whiplashed from side to side with each shot from Sargent, and he clearly seemed to be out on his feet at this point.
However, the referee, perhaps remembering Woods, a notorious slow starter, comeback decision win over talented prospect Samuel Miller earlier in March. Whatever the case, Woods took a massive beating in the 2nd round, one of the worse I’ve seen for a fighter to take and still be allowed to continue fighting. In between rounds, the referee gave Woods a warning that he needs to fight back.
In the 3rd round, Woods finally discontinued his experiment with fighting southpaw, and fought much better because of it. Woods was able to keep his distance, and used his long jab to keep Sargeant pretty much bottled up on the outside. However, like in previous rounds, Woods retreated to the ropes late in the round, and took a lot of punishment for a brief spell before the round ended. It was enough to give the round to Sargeant, who before that, he’d done little in the round.
The fight got really nasty in the 4th round, as Woods was badly staggered while, again, fighting on the ropes, and Sargeant unleashed a huge amount of head shots that had Woods’ head spinning every which way. Again, the referee decided to let the fight continue for the remainder of the round, despite Woods taking sustained punishment for much of the round.
Virtually for the last two minutes of the round, Woods, his legs now gone, reeled around the ring like a drunk while the shorter Sargent slowly plodded after him hitting him with punch after punch to the head. Incredibly, Woods made it to the end of the round without going down or the fight being stopped. However, in between rounds, the referee finally did the wise thing and stopped the slaughter, giving Sargeant the victory.