Fields vs. Afolabi

By Tony Krebs: Undefeated cruiserweight Eric Fields (11-0, 9 KOs) will return to action on Saturday night against Ola Afolabi (11-1-3, 4 KOs) in a scheduled 12-round bout for the little-known vacant North American Boxing Association (NABO) at the Emerald Queen Casino, in Tacoma, Washington. Fields, 21, the 2005 and 2006 National Golden Gloves Heavyweight champion, recently flattened former IBF cruiserweight champion Kelvin Davis in the 1st round on January 18th, 2008, in a one-sided bout from the opening bell. Fields wasted little time in pouncing on Davis, after studying him for a second; he then proceeded to tag him with a monstrous right that dropped Davis to the canvas.

Upon getting up, Davis was met with a mad horde of punches from the 6′2″ Fields, who hit Davis with everything but the kitchen sink as he gamely tried to cover up on the ropes. After the beating continued on for what appeared to be an extended period of time seeming like minutes, Fields finally connected with a sledgehammer left uppercut that dropped Davis to the canvas face first. It was a particularly nasty knockdown, the kind that fighters rarely are able to get up from afterwards. Davis, however, showed super human courage as he pulled his body slowly up from the canvas, looking badly hurt and disoriented as he somehow dragged himself to his feet. Regrettably for him, the referee Telis Assimenios had seen enough, and opted to stop the fight rather than allowing Fields to land one or two more finishing shots to knock Davis down for what would have been the second time.

The cruiserweight division is barren of big, quality cruiserweights, and for this reason Fields seemed to stand out much more than he would have otherwise. As of now, I consider Fields to be the best of the cruiserweight prospects, better than Yoan Pablo Hernandez, Alexander Alexeev, BJ Flores and Marco Huck. He’s especially better than Flores, who I’ve been hearing a lot from in the past month due to his self-promotional efforts.

As for Field’s opponent, Afolabi, he stands almost zero chance of winning on Saturday night. He has little power, speed or the kind of pedigree needed to beat a fighter of Field’s caliber, which means that he’s going to need a lot of luck if he hopes to come out on the winning end on Saturday. Afolabi has faced mostly poor competition and the one time that he stepped up and fought a real quality opponent, he lost by a four-round decision to Allan Green.

He did, however, knockout a 42 year-old Orlin Norris in the 7th round in November 2005, but that was two and half years ago, the last time that Afolabi fought. Not a good sign going into a fight with someone as skilled and as powerful as Fields. Look for an early knockout for Fields, likely by the 3rd or 4th round.