By John Dower: Featherweight contender Monty Meza Clay (27-1, 18 KOs) stopped former International Boxing Federation feather weight champion Eric Aiken (16-7-1, 12 KOs) in the 7th round on Friday night at the Expo Mart, in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. Clay, 26, looking a lot like former great Aaron Pryor, used a non-stop punching attack to methodically break down the former champion Aiken, ultimately stopping him in the 7th round as Aiken was taking tremendous punishment on the ropes. The referee Ernie Sharif stopped the bout at 0:39 of the 7th round. At the time of the stoppage, Aiken had been hit with over 20 consecutive head shots while trapped on the ropes without throwing anything back in return.
Clay, who at 5’1″, was giving up seven inches in height to the 5’8″ Aiken, but it mattered little, for Aiken failed to use his height to his advantage in any of the rounds. Starting in the first round, Clay, fighting in front of his him town crowd, was immediately on top of Aiken, throwing short punches to the head and midsection, seemingly without stop. Aiken didn’t appear to know what to do, as he made the mistake of backing up to the ropes and then covering up as if he were playing a rope-a-dope routine.
If he thought that Clay would soon wear himself out from throwing tons of punches, he was sadly mistaken, because Clay seemed to have little problem throwing the punches – mostly arms shots – without showing any visible signs of wearing down. Aiken landed a number of his own shots in the first round, but because of the fact that Clay wasn’t letting up with his own, Aiken badly lost the round. Clearly, Aiken wasn’t going to be able to match Clay punch for punch, so it was a mystery why instead Aiken didn’t focus on moving around the ring and creating distance.
The punches he did throw, mostly short hooks and jabs, had little on them because he was forced to fight in close to due to him fighting in close with Clay. In the first round alone, Clay threw over 100 punches. He would go on to repeat this in all but one of the rounds, as he buried Aiken with shots. Though many of the punches were missing, a lot of them were getting threw and connecting due to the sheer volume thrown.
In rounds two through three, nothing changed except that Aiken began to throw less punches as he was reduced to that of a punching bag. I kept thinking that he would start fighting, since he was a former champion and had decent ability, yet he just somehow refused to let his hands go. The crowd, which was loudly screaming for every punch Clay though, perhaps didn’t help Aiken, as he seemed dejected, like he didn’t want to be there.
Clay stepped up the pace in round four, really letting his hands go and landing a large number of shots to the head and midsection. Aiken was getting hit with a large number of sustained combinations, and he was blocking less and less of them. Aiken continued to try and throw an occasional jab, but it wasn’t effective at keeping Clay at a distance, because he using a lot of head movement similar to Joe Frazier, and ducking under many of the shots. Once inside, Clay would generally stay there, unmovable, as he pounded away at Aiken.
In rounds five and six, Clay was really unloading on Aiken with fast shots, and seemed that it would be only a matter of time before the fight was stopped. By this time, I had given up on the idea that Aiken would somehow get back into the fight. It seemed like only a matter of time before the referee either stopped it or Aiken’s corner would throw in the towel to protect their fighter.
In the 7th round, Clay came out strong, and seemed to have turned it up a gear with his punches, which seemed almost crazy because he was already throwing hundred punches per round. As soon as the round started, Clay immediately came right at Aiken, standing squarely directly in front of him, firing shot after shot without stop. Most of the shots missed, but several right hands connected to the head of Aiken and whiplashed his head back from the force. The referee seeing the plight that Aiken was in, moved in and halted the bout at 0:39 of the 7th round.
It was an excellent victory for Clay, ranked #8 in the World Boxing Organization, and 14th in the WBA and IBF. Clay seems to have improved a lot since being stopped in the 11th round by Edner Cherry in May 2006. I remember thinking that he’d never be a contender, because of his lack of height. However, he’s learned to move his head to avoid shots from taller fighters, and also seems to have adopted the non-stop punching style of the Aaron Pryor. At this point, he looks hard to beat despite his limited height.