Cunningham beats Mansour; Curtis Stevens stops Tureano Johnson

By Boxing News - 04/04/2014 - Comments

stevens6(Photo Credits:
Larry Levanti/Main Events) By Jim Dower: Former two time world champion Steve “USS” Cunningham (27-6, 12 KO’s) got up off the canvas twice in the 5th round to come back to defeat 41-year-old Amir Mansour (20-1, 15 KO’s) on Friday night to come back and get the win at the Liacouras Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The final judges scored were 97-90, 95-92, 95-92. Cunningham knocked Mansour down with a right hand in the 10th round to seal the victory.

In the 5th round, Cunningham was knocked down twice by Mansour after getting hit with right hands. Cunningham had dominated the first 4 rounds with his jab and long reach against the 6’1″ Mansour. But in the 5th, Cunningham made a mistake of getting too close to the hard hitting Mansour, and he took a big right hand that put him on the canvas. Cunningham was badly hurt after he got back to his feet and was quickly dropped again for a second time. However, Stevens was able to survive the remaining seconds of the round to get out of it.

Mansour’s left eye swelled up in the later rounds, and he also had swelling around his right eye. Cunningham was cut over his left eye in the 2nd round after getting caught with a big shots.

Mansour showed excellent power despite losing the fight. Had he been a little more accurate and under control, he might have won the fight. He was just too wild with shots, and he failed to use his jab.

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In a controversial fight, middleweight Curtis Stevens (27-4, 20 KO’s) pulled out a miracle 10th round TKO win over Tureano Johnson (14-1, 10 KO’s). Stevens was trailing badly in the fight going into the 10th round when he nailed Johnson with a big left hook that snapped Johnson’s head, causing him to back up to the ropes while under a hail of fire from Stevens.

Once he got him to the ropes, Stevens threw a flurry of punches to the head of Johnson with many of them missing. At that point referee Gary Rosato stepped in and halted the fight at 2:09 of the round. The crowd at ringside booed loudly at the stoppage, as they felt that Johnson was well enough to continue. However, he was badly shaken up by the left hook from Johnson, and it’s doubtful that he would have made it out of the round without being sent to the canvas. Even after the referee halted the fight, Johnson was still staggering as he protested the stoppage.

Stevens was smothered the entire fight, and he took a real beating by Johnson, who showed a great chin in taking some devastating shots from Stevens. Johnson’s stamina and punch output was nothing short of incredible. Not only was Johnson able to keep Stevens up against the ropes to smother his offense, but he was also able to throw nonstop punches in each round while taking big punches every so often.

As the 10th round started, Stevens knew that he had to score a knockout in order for him to win the fight. Johnson should have been staying away from Stevens given his huge lead, but instead he went right after him and gave Stevens the perfect opportunity to catch him with something. Stevens landed a big left hook while Johnson was trying to throw one of his own shots. The left hook snapped Johnson’s head to the side and had him completely out on his feet. Johnson then staggered backwards and took a storm of shots, at which point the referee stopped the fight.

You can make an argument that the fight should have been allowed to continue, but in looking at how hurt Johnson was, it’s not surprising that the referee stopped the fight. Johnson wasn’t throwing any punches back from the moment he was hurt, and the flurry that Stevens unloaded on him was doing big time damage. Johnson was literally bent over and likely about to go down when the referee halted the fight. There’s no way that Johnson was going to be able to come back from that, as Stevens wasn’t going to let up on him.



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