By Jim Dower: Middleweight contender #6 IBF, #10 WBC, Curtis Stevens (25-3, 18 KO’s) may have set himself up with a title shot against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin by destroying the hard hitting Saul Roman (37-10, 31 KO’s) in a 1st round knockout in a night full of mismatches on Saturday night at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Stevens dropped Roman twice with big left hooks to the head. After the 2nd knockdown, which left Roman flat on his back on the canvas and badly hurt, the fight was then halted at 2:26. In winning the fight, Stevens captured the vacant NABF middleweight title.
Stevens now could end up facing Golovkin in November. Golovkin is interested in that fight, and HBO likely will be as well after they see how easily Stevens beat a good puncher in Roman.
This was Stevens’ fourth consecutive win since losing a 12 round decision to Jesse Brinkley in 2010.
Stevens jumped all over Roman at the start of the fight, flurrying on Roman and immediately driving him to the ropes where Stevens knocked him down with a left hook to the head. After the action resumed, Roman was able to fight a little in between getting nailed by huge bombs.
Roman clinched Stevens to buy some time after he realized that he getting hit too much. However, this didn’t stop Stevens, because soon as the clinch was broken up and drove Roman to the ropes and dropped him with a huge left hook to the head. The fight was then stopped at that point.
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In other terrible mismatch on the card, #9 WBC, #12 IBF, heavyweight contender Tomasz Adamek (49-2, 29 KO’s) dominated 38-year-old Dominick Guinn (34-10-1, 23 KO’s) in beating him by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision by the scores 98-92, 99-91, 99-91. The journeyman Guinn was a replacement opponent for Tony Grano, who had suffered an injury and couldn’t take the fight.
As it turned out, it’s too bad the fight was canceled because this was another one of Adamek’s mismatches with him fighting an outclassed fighter that didn’t belong in the same ring with him. Guinn came into the fight having lost 3 out of his last 4 fights, and he had nothing to make that fight interesting.
Despite having the better power, better jab and the bigger size, Guinn rarely let his hands go, as he seemed content to stand in front of Adamek taking shots all night. With nothing back at him, Adamek often flurried on Guinn, showboating at times, and enjoying himself as beat up hapless journeyman in a fight that was painful to watch due to the one-sided nature of it.
Guinn was cut over his left eye in the 3rd round from a head clash. From that point on, Guinn only occasionally landed a big left hook or right hand. Most of the fight he plodded forward eating Adamek’s best punches.
After the fight, Adamek said he’s only 1-2 fights away from getting a world title shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko. However, if that happens, Adamek will either have to get to pushed up the rankings over higher ranked contenders very quickly, or Wladimir will have to pick Adamek out for an optional title defense.
I think it’s more likely that Wladimir will have to hand pick Adamek for a title shot, because Adamek isn’t going to get pushed up to #1 in the IBF, WBA or WBO rankings based off beating a journeyman like Guinn. You got to do better than that. Adamek has two recent controversial decision wins over Steve Cunningham and Eddie Chambers in fights Adamek appeared to lose.
Beating Guinn isn’t going to be enough, and if Adamek fights another 2nd tier fighter or another fringe contender, it still likely won’t be enough to become Wladimir’s mandatory challenger.
Adamek is going to have to step up and fight a live body like Magomed Abdulamov or someone of that class for him to quickly become the mandatory for Wladimir. Adamek turned down a fight with Kubrat Pulev in what would have been an IBF heavyweight eliminator bout because he didn’t see the fight as a good fight for business.
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Former heavyweight Eddie Chambers (36-4, 18 KO’s) looked overmatched in his first fight at cruiserweight in losing by a lopsided 10 round unanimous decision to Thadiso Mchunu (14-1, 9 KO’s).
Chambers, 6’1”, had a 5 inch height advantage over the 5’8” southpaw Mchunu, but he was unable to use his reach advantage due to Mchunu’s habit of leaning backwards to stay out of range of Chambers’ shots.
When Chambers would come in punching range, Mchunu would pot shot him with jabs, right hands and straight lefts. Mchunu looked like a heavier, more muscular version of Floyd Mayweather Jr. with the way that he was able to dominate Chambers with pot shots and counter punches all night long.
Chambers looked frustrated in the second half of the fight, as he kept getting nailed by Mchunu fast shots over and over again, and there was nothing he could do about it because he didn’t have the hand speed or the skills to compete against the little known Mchunu.
This Mchunu looks for real at cruiserweight.
I could Mchunu him beating a lot of cruiserweights in the division like Marco Huck, Yoan Hernandez, and Krzysztof Wladarczyk. I don’t think Mchunu could beat a cruiserweight like Guillermo Jones, because he’s simply too tall, too strong and too big for Mchunu. But I do think he could beat most of the rest of the cruiserweights.
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