By Chris Williams: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Shawn Porter (7-0, 6 KOs) destroyed a badly overmatched Eloy Suarez (10-5, 5 KOs) in the 1st round on Friday night at the Pepsi Pavilion, in Memphis, Tennessee. Porter, a 2008 Olympian for the United States, was all over Suarez from the opening bell, firing massive shots to the head and body. Porter ended matters with three huge left hooks to the head of Suarez while he was trapped in the corner.
The fight was a hopeless mismatch from the start, because Porter, 21, was a 2007 National Golden Gloves middleweight champion with over 280 amateur fights on his record, while Suarez, 35, was making only his second appearance in the boxing ring since 2004. Porter might as well have not fought anyone last night, because this was a silly waste of time for him. Suarez had no chance to begin with and never even seemed to try all that hard to land any significant punches in the fight.
Porter, 5’7”, attacked Suarez at the start of the fight, rushing up to his and nailing him with short left hooks to the head. Porter bounced a lot and did a fine job of ducking the few attempts that Suarez made at landing. Because of Porters severe lack of height, he was forced to fight at close quarters at all times.
This should have been perfect for Suarez, because he had no hand speed and looked poor when attempting to throw shots from the distance. However, Porter expertly ducked almost all of Suarez’s shots, making them miss overhead.
Near the end of the round, Porter trapped Suarez in the corner and began landed fast combinations to the head. Finally, Porter landed three consecutive left hooks (interrupted by a single right hand from Suarez) that put Suarez down in the corner.
Suarez got to his feet, but was unable to stand without resting both of his arms on the side of the ropes. The referee took one look at him and decided to stop the fight.
Although Porter looked very impressive in winning the fight, I can’t see him being a factor in the light middleweight division due to his limited height. He’s just too short for the division in my view and he needs to consider stripped off some of his muscle and moving down two divisions to make the light welterweight class.
He’s probably too short for welterweight as well, so I’d advise him to try and make 140 if at all possible. If not, I can’t see him ever being a factor in the light middleweight division.
Also on the card, unbeaten lightweight prospect Mark Davis (12-0, 4 KOs) defeated Steve Gonzalez (7-2-1, 4 KOs) by an eight-round unanimous decision. Davis looked very impressive, boxing well from the inside and landing hard combinations to the head and body of Gonzalez. Davis was unable to take out his durable opponent.
The final judges’ scores were 80-72, 80-72 and 78-74, all for Davis. The fight was never remotely competitive. Davis showed good hand speed, an awesome body attack and great combinations. However, Davis has absolutely no power and looks to be too short for the lightweight division.
His lack of power is going to be a limiting factor for Davis in the future, no matter how fast his hand speed is. He’s not only short, but he also has very short arms as well. Against taller lightweights like Amir Khan and Breidis Prescott, Davis will be pole axed and taken out. Davis needs to try and move down to featherweight if possible, because he’d have problems as a super featherweight as well due to his limited height and power.
Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Tor Hamer (5-0, 4 KOs) defeated Kelsey Arnold (1-2-2, 1 KOs) by a 4-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 40-46, 40-36 and 40-36. Hamer, 6’2”, a former 2008 National Golden Gloves Super heavyweight champion, attacked Arnold hard in the first two rounds, landing well to the body with hard combinations.
It looked as if Hamer might be able to score an early knockout. However, Arnold was able to take Hamer’s shots, and by the 3rd round, Hamer was tired, throwing far less punches and not landing with the same kind of power he did in the first two rounds. Arnold, 25, was still unable to land more than a handful of punches, but he did succeed in swelling up both of Hamer’s eyes and making him work harder than he probably wanted to for the victory.
Hammer landed well with hard combinations to the head near the end of the 1st round, and it looked as if he was close to knocking Arnold down. It didn’t happen, though, as Arnold weathered the storm of punches and kept on fighting, if you want to call it that. In the 3rd and 4th rounds, Hamer seemed to be still trying for the knockout, but he looked too tired and weak to land anything hard enough to trouble Arnold.
At 6’2” 224, Hamer seems a tad too small and weak for the heavyweight division. He’d never be able to beat larger and more powerful heavyweights like the Klitschko brothers. Hamer might be better off taking off some fat and moving down to the cruiserweight division where he’d have a better chance at beating some good fighters. At heavyweight, I think he would get easily knocked out by the better fighters in the division.