By Eric Thomas: In something of an upset, heavyweight prospect Travis Kauffman (18-1, 15 KO’s) was stopped in the 4th round of a scheduled 10 round bout by Tony Grano (16-1-1, 13 KO’s) on Friday night at the Chumash lounge, in Santa Ynez, California. Grano, 28, hurt Kauffman with a hard right hand to the head in the 4th, and then tore into him with a flurrying of shots ending with Kauffman going down after getting cuffed by a left hand.
It wasn’t an actual punch that sent Kauffman down. However, he was badly hurt from the other shots he had taken from Grano and was unable to get up off the canvas. The bout was stopped with only four seconds to go in the 4th round at 2:56 of the round.
Grano made it ugly in the opening round, getting in close and hitting Kauffman with short punches that reminded more of a MMA fighter than a professional boxer. Grano’s hand speed was average and his free swinging style of punching was unlike the average heavyweight.
Kauffman looked unprepared for the kind of attack that Grano was meeting him with and ended up taking a lot of shots in the round. For a moment there, I thought Kauffman was going to dropped, because he took a number of hard shots to the head on the inside and appeared helpless to do anything about it.
In the 3rd round, Kauffman came back looking good, throwing combinations and taking the fight to Grano. For a small heavyweight like Kauffman (218 pounds), he looked good while he was on offense. His power was nothing to shout about, but he put together some nice combinations in the round and had Grano looked worried.
Actually, Grano already looked spent, as if he had shot his fireworks in the first two rounds and had nothing left. He was breathing really hard and clinching constantly. In the 4th round, Kauffman launched into a nice attack in the opening seconds of the round, nailing Grano with repeated left hands to the head and body.
However, Grano was able to get Kauffman to back off from his attack by hitting him with a big left hand low that caused Kauffman to double over in pain. Kauffman restarted his attack after being given a few seconds to recover and once again had Grano eating a lot of leather.
However, just when it looked as if Kauffman was about to put Grano away, he came back suddenly and tagged Kauffman with a powerful right hand that hurt him. Grano then teed off on Kauffman, hitting him with a sustained flurry of punches ending with a cuffing left hand to the head that dropped Kauffman. Once he was down, he stayed down and needed to be helped up off the canvas by his corner.
The referee shouldn’t have scored that as a knockdown, but I really didn’t matter by that point because Kauffman was badly hurt and would have been taken out in the next round. It’s possible that he could have gotten his act together in between rounds, but I highly doubt it.
Grano seemed to have his number at that point and probably would have mowed him down had the fight continued. I can’t say I was impressed with either Grano or Kauffman. They both look like 2nd tier heavyweights and appear to be lacking in the size and power department.
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In other action on the card, unbeaten bantamweight prospect Chris Avalos (12-0, 10 KO’s) knocked out Giovanni Caro (13-8-4, 11 KO’s) in the 4th round. Avalos, 19, hurt Caro with a big sweeping right hand and then dropped him with a left hook to the head. Caro was badly hurt by the knockdown and stayed flat on his back as stiff as a board for a short period of time after being dropped.
The bout was immediately stopped at 2:15 of the 4th. The 1st round was close, as Caro came out aggressively, throwing a lot of punches and trying to take Avalos out. However, Avalos used good head movement to avoid many of Caro’s big shots in the round.
In the 2nd part of the round, Avalos came after Caro and hit him with some hard hooks to the head. It was a real close round with a lot of action. Caro got off to a quick start in the 2nd round, hitting Avalos with a handful of right hands to the head.
Avalos came back with combinations from there, using his quickness to get the better of the action. It was still a relatively close round and hard to score. In the 3rd round, Avalos and Caro went toe-to-toe through most of the round. Caro, however, missed a lot of his punches because of the excellent head movement from Avalos.
In the 4th round, Avalos looked strong and fully warmed up at this point, and dominated the action with his sharp combinations. In the last minute of the round, Avalos hurt Caro with a right hand and then dropped him with a left hook. The fight was then stopped with Caro flat on his back and unable to get up.