By Jim Dower: In a dull fight former WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (28-2, 15 KOs) scored a 7th round stoppage win over a badly over-matched Luis Grajeda (17-4-2, 13 KOs) on Thursday night in their scheduled 10 round bout at the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California, USA.
Trout worked Grajeda over with body shots, left hands to the head and right hooks through seven rounds. After the 7th, Grajeda quit on his stool rather than coming out for the 8th.
Trout took the fight to Grajeda for the entire fight. Unlike Trout’s last three fights, he didn’t have much to worry about in terms of Grajeda’s power because he didn’t have much to offer him.
Grajeda was a step down from Trout’s last opponent Daniel Dawson, who knocked Trout down twice in the fight.
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In other action on the card, 46-year-old former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver (31-6, 22 KOs) defeated a rusty Johnathon Banks (29-3-1, 19 KOs) in stopping him in the 7th round. Tarver hurt Banks with a left hand and then knocked him down with a three punch combination. After Banks got up, Tarver finished him off with a series of hard shots that led to referee Jack Reiss stepping in and stoping the fight at 2:25 of the round.
After the fight Tarver said “I’m punching now. I’m a knockout artist. When I drop the hammer, it’s good night Irene. I want to become the oldest champion to win a world title. I will become the heavyweight champion of the world.”
As much as Tarver would like to get a shot against IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, he would be way out of his element if he was able to get the fight. Tarver was throwing only a tiny handful of punches tonight against a guy that was basically throwing no punches each round in 32-year-old Banks. If Tarver were to fight someone like Wladimir, it wouldn’t be an entertaining fight for boxing fans. Tarver doesn’t throw enough punches and he’s not in shape for a fight against someone like Wladimir.
Tarver is currently ranked #10 by the WBA. Unless he’s planning on fighting WBA champion Ruslan Chagaev, he would stand no chance against Wladimir. It would be better if Tarver proved himself by fighting one of the top contenders at heavyweight like Kubrat Pulev or Tyson Fury. You can’t count Banks as a top contender because he hadn’t fought in a year and a half before tonight.
Other boxing results on the card:
Oscar Escandon SD 12 Tyson Cave
Rico Ramos UD 8 Juan Ruiz
Marcus Browne TKO 1 George Blades
Gerald Washington TKO 1 Mike Sheppard
Terrell Gausha TKO 8 Cesar Vila
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