Last night on ESPN’s reality television series “The Contender” super middleweight contender Sakio Bika (25-3-2, 15 KOs) stopped Jaidon Codrington (18-2, 14 KOs) in the 8th round at the TD Banknorth Garden, in Boston. Bika, 28, knocked Codrington down in the 1st round with a right hand. However, it was more of a case of Codrington getting his feet tangled than actually being hurt. Bika, though, immediately tore into Codrington, thinking he had him hurt, and began unloading bombs while Codrington was trapped on the ropes. Codrington unleashed a huge left hook that connected to the jaw of the wide open Bika, who was clearly not thinking about defense, knocking him to the canvas. When Bika got up, he was badly hurt, stumbling around the ring like a drunk.
The Contender referee had no thoughts of stopping the fight, however, and let the fight continue despite Bika’s horrible condition. For the remainder of the round, Bika draped himself on Codrington, holding on for dear life as his legs were completely gone. Unfortunately for Codrington, he did little for the last two minutes of the round, even though Bika was his for the taking and was in no condition to do much other than clinch continuously. In rounds two through six, both fighters took turns trading shots with one another. Codrington, the naturally bigger puncher, appeared to have the edge going into the 7th round of the fight. In that round, Codrington began to look tired and had lost a lot of the power on his shots.
Bika, however, was still fairly fresh and took advantage of it by landing several big shots in the round, in particular, a huge left hook near the end of the round which whiplashed Codrington’s head badly. That shot appeared to take all the energy out of Codrington, as his legs were completely gone following Bika landing that punch. In then 8th round, Bika pursued Codrington around the ring, tagging him mostly at will with left hooks and series of right hands. Finally, Bika landed a series of right hands that further hurt Codrington, enough for the referee Dick Flaherty to step in and halt the fight at 2:18 of the 8th round. The fight probably should have been stopped much earlier, as Codrington was taking severe punishment for most of the round, particularly the last minute.
With this win, Bika wins the $800,000 first prize for winning The Contender final. Along the way, Bika defeated Donny McCrary and Sam Soliman. Not bad, considering that Bika had recently been defeated by Joe Calzaghe and Lucian Bute.
Comments are closed.