Miranda Annihilates Banks

The fight went pretty much as I thought it would, though I figured that super middelweight Edison Miranda (30-2, 26 KO’s) 1) would take longer to catch up to David Banks (15-4-1, 2 KO’s), the former star from “The Contender.” However, Banks made it easy for Miranda, trying to actually fight him instead of running, which is what I had predicted that Banks would do for most of the fight. Though it was interesting watching Miranda trying to catch up to Banks, it was no surprize that when he caught him it would be over in an instant.

In this case, Miranda finally cornered Banks in the third, and hit him with a pulverizing right hand that knocked him through the ropes and out of the fight. It was a brutal punch, reminding me somewhat of the shot Julian Jackson landed on the chin of Terry Norris in their bout. The referee Telis Assimenios stopped the fight at 1:15 of the 3rd round. In the earlier rounds of the fight, Banks mostly jabbed, trying to frustrate Miranda and keep him from landing his big shots. Banks was able to land an occasional right hand, but with the little power that he had, it had no effect on slowing down Miranda.

I thought Banks was making a big mistake by letting Miranda get within punching distance to him, as I knew that Banks would have problems if he got tagged with a big shot by Miranda. Perhaps it was being in the spotlight that made Banks brave, or maybe having been a star on The Contender. Whatever the case, his game plan was doomed for failure from the very start. After Miradna connected with his right hand in the 3rd, there was no question that Banks was finished.

Even if he had been able to survive the shot, Miranda looked to be just warming up at that point, and would have hit him with similar devastating shots if it were to have continued for much longer. At 168, Miranda looks almost invincible. He’s not particularly fast, but his power is some awesome at this weight, that he would be big problems for any of the fighters in the division, including Joe Calzaghe and Lucian Bute. No longer does Miranda have to drain weight to make the 160 lb limit, which was the case when he fought in the middleweight division. His walking around weight is 190, with almost zero fat, so when he takes up weight for a fight, he’s essentially stripping off a great deal of muscle in the process.