By Dan Ambrose: Once beaten Canadian heavyweight prospect Bermane “B. WARE” Stiverne (16-1, 16 KOs) destroyed American Lyle McDowell (27-12-1, 18 KOs) in the first round on Saturday night of a scheduled eight-round bout on the undercard of Evander Holyfield vs. Nikolay Valuev at Hallenstadion, in Zurich, Switzerland. After a dull first two rounds of the fight in which both fighters stood staring at each other, barely moving and posing a lot, Stiverne suddenly landed a big left hand, hurting McDowell badly.
Stiverne then unloaded on his with a flurry of punches, ending with a right hand to the head, sending McDowell to the canvas. Referee Ingo Barrabas then halted the fight with McDowell down on the canvas and hurt.
In appearance, Stiverne, 6’2″ 258, looked and fought like a faster, harder punching version of Samuel Peter, although not nearly as aggressive as Peter normally is. though. Stiverne did little in the first two minutes of the round, standing still with his guard up, staring across at McDowell and every once in awhile throwing slow, pawing jabs that often ended a foot in front of McDowell.
For his part, McDowell was doing the exact same thing, not throwing anything and just pawing with his jab. If the fight hadn’t taken place in Switzerland, I fear that the crowd would have long ago booed both fighters out of the ring in the first two minutes, because that was some of the worse non-action I’ve seen in a heavyweight match in years.
However, suddenly McDowell started throwing jabs that actually connected, and then he landed a couple of right hand to the head of Stiverne. This seemed to have the effect of waking Stiverne from his mental slumber, getting him into the fight for the first time.
Stiverne then fired off a an incredibly fast right hand to the head of McDowell, showing Tyson like speed and power on the shot. Seconds later, he hurt McDowell with a monstrous left hand to the head. With McDowell not looking too good, Stiverne then poured in nine unanswered shots to the head, ending with a perfect right hand to send him down for the count.
The referee might as well have not even bothered counting because McDowell was hurt and not in any position to get up and beat the count, much less to continue fighting.
At this point, it’s hard to say how good Stiverne really is. At first glance, I can see that he has very good power, probably better than virtually all of the top 10, aside from the Klitschko brothers. His speed is also quite extraordinary, as he throws very fast punches once he decides to let his hands go.
However, his lack of height, only 6’2″, and his weak chin, might be limiting factors for him. If he can learn to protect himself better, I think he has the power to be a top ten fighter in the future. However, it’s worrisome that he was stopped in the 4th round a year ago in July by Demetrice King. That’s not a good sign for Stiverne.
That’s a fighter that he should have been able to take out without much trouble. Never the less, if he can work on his defensive liabilities, he can be something special maybe. His victory over McDowell was his 13th 1st round knockout victory of his 16 knockouts in his three year career.