By Chris Williams: Last night on Friday Night Fights, light welterweight contender Randall Bailey (39-6, 34 KOs) demolished Frankie Figueroa in the 4th round of a scheduled 12-round International Boxing Federation (IBF) title eliminator bout in Memphis, Tennessee. Bailey, 34, dropped Figueroa with a huge fight hand in the opening second of the 1st round.
Incredibly, Figueroa got up from the knockdown and survived the round despite taking a number of additional big shots to the head before the round ended. In the 2nd round, Figueroa came out on fire and dropped Bailey with a big right of his own. In this case, however, Bailey fought back and gave Figueroa a lot of problems with his right hand shots.
In the 4th round, Bailey caught up to Figueroa and blasted him with another big right hand that sent Figueroa down on the canvas, badly hurt. The fight was then stopped almost immediately at 1:46 of the round, as Figueroa was clearly too hurt to continue fighting. This win puts Bailey in position to face title holder Colombian Juan Urango, a fighter also with a lot of power like Bailey. It should be interesting.
In the first 45 seconds of the 1st round, Bailey, perhaps the hardest puncher in the light welterweight division, landed a huge right hand that put Figueroa down. Seconds after Figueroa got up, Bailey staggered him with another big right hand to the head. The fight that some had thought would be competitive was quickly turning out to be a one-sided mismatch. Bailey, 5’9”, finished the round teeing off on the shorter 5’6” Figueroa with right hands.
Bailey was knocked down in the 2nd round. However, it seemed like a blown call from the referee, as Figueroa landed a right hook to the top of Bailey’s head. Bailey then ducked Figueroa’s follow-up left hand while backing away in a crouch. Figueroa went after Bailey as if he thought he was hurt. Bailey backed to the ropes and was then pushed down by a right hand from Figueroa that landed on his chest.
It was a horrible call, but as it turns out, it didn’t matter in the end. Figueroa, now totally overeager and thinking he had Bailey hurt, attacked Bailey hard for the remainder of the round, missing almost every punch he threw. It was as if Figueroa was fighting with a blindfold on, because he was missing over 90% of his punches for the remainder of the round and looked terrible.
The 3rd round had little action to speak of, with Bailey throwing few punches and Figueroa doing little other than landing some harmless jabs and left hands. Bailey kept him at a distance which prevented the shorter Figueroa from landing his shots. Around midpoint of the round, Bailey landed a nice right hand that stopped Figueroa’s forward motion and causing him to be knocked back a foot from the shot.
At the start of the 4th, both fighters clashed heads hard, sending Figueroa into the ropes and Bailey backing away, holding his head in pain. The action resumed and a minute later they clashed heads again hard. A short while later, Bailey landed a short right uppercut and then tagged Figueroa with a tremendous right hand to the head, sending Figueroa down flat on his back on the canvas. Figueroa remained motionless for 10 to 15 seconds before stirring to life.