By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated heavyweight prospect Odlanier Solis (14-0, 10 KO’s) stopped journeyman Dominique Alexander (18-7-1, 9 KOs) in the 1st round on Saturday night in a scheduled eight-round bout at the Miccosukee Resort & Gaming, in Miami, Florida. Solis, 29, the 2004 heavyweight Olympic Gold Medalist for Cuba, knocked the over-matched Alexander down twice in the fight in the fight.
After the second knockdown, a left-right combination that sent Alexander down flat on his face, the bout was stopped by referee Frank Santore Jr. at 2:55 of the 1st round.
Looking around 25 pounds overweight, Solis stalked Alexander around the ring for most of the 1st round, hitting him with right hands to the body and jabs to the head. Solis connected with a couple of wide right hooks in the opening minute of the round. Alexander, though, didn’t make it easy for him as he moved constantly in wide circles staying on his toes and flicking out a harmless jab that rarely landed.
Solis connected with a hard clubbing right hand at one point as Alexander briefly came in range. Near the end of the round, Solis caught up to Alexander near the ropes and hit him with two quick left hooks one to the body and the other to the head, that sent Alexander, 26, down on the canvas.
He got up immediately and was tagged with a right hand, left and then a left-right combination from Solis that sent Alexander down face first on the canvas. The fight was then stopped by referee Frank Santore Jr. at 2:55 of the round. Alexander stayed down for a long time on his stomach.
Although it was another good win for Solis, his fighting weight of 262 pounds was something to be alarmed at, as he appears to be too big for his short 6’1″ height. Since capturing the Olympics five years ago, Solis has put on over 60 pounds of weight.
Most of it is muscle, but there’s still a significant amount of fat that Solis has put on as well. Regardless of whether it’s muscle, he appears much slower than he was in his Olympic days and not big enough to beat the bigger heavyweights in the division like the Klitschko brothers. However, the chances of Solis taking the weight off and being successful at heavyweight would seem slim and none at this point.
Solis has put on so much weight that even if he were to trip down to 235 or 240, he would likely be too weak to beat a top contender. Whether he likes it or not, Solis is probably going to be stuck fighting around the mid 250s to 260s for the remainder of his career.
It’s too bad that he decided to put all that weight on but it would be almost suicidal at this point if Solis were to try and take off much of the weight and fight at something lower. It’s too bad, because he could have been a good cruiserweight had he stayed around 200 instead of bulking up.
However, Solis might be good enough to beat a German heavyweight champion or one of the obscure of heavyweight titles. Solis might be good enough to beat World Boxing Association heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev, but then again, so is a lot of other heavyweights for that matter.