Solis vs. Oquendo on October 10th; Woods to Work as Plasterer; Katsidis-Escobedo – News

By Boxing News - 09/18/2009 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: Undefeated heavyweight contender Odlanier Solis (14-0, 10 KO’s) will now be fighting Fres Oquendo (31-5, 20 KO’s) in a scheduled 10-round bout on October 10th, at Madison Square Garden, in New York. Solis, 29, the 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist for Cuba, was supposed to be fighting heavyweight contender Kevin Johnson.

However, Johnson decided to pull out of the fight and wait on a big money bout against World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in December. That left Solis without an opponent until the 36-year-old Oquendo was recently found to replace Johnson.

As it turns out, Oquendo might even be a better opponent for Solis to show off his offensive skills because Oquendo, ranked #14 in the WBC, has a better work rate than Johnson and likes to throw combinations. This won’t be an easy fight for Solis.

Oquendo has won five out of his last six fights since 2006 and looked good in doing so. The only loss during that time for Oquendo was a questionable 12-round split decision loss to James Toney on December 13th, 2008, a fight which many boxing fans felt that Oquendo won by a significant margin.

I saw the fight myself and felt that Oquendo should have won by at least eight rounds because Toney was outworked in most of the rounds. At 36, Oquendo needs this win to stay in the top 15 and to keep moving up. He can’t afford a defeat right now because that will likely knock him out of the top tier of the division.

Likewise, Solis, #7 WBC, needs to stay unbeaten so that he can keep moving up. Solis has been looking good, even though he seems to be getting fatter and fatter with each fight. In 2004, Solis fought at 200 pounds. However, Solis is now fighting in the mid 250s, with a good portion of the weight consisting of fat.

In his last bout, a 1st round knockout win over Dominique Alexander in June, Solis weighed 262 pounds on a 6’1 ½” frame. Solis still has been able to punch with good hand speed despite putting on weight. Whether that will continue to be the case in the future will be interesting to see. Hopefully, Solis doesn’t get any fatter than he is now, because he’ll be no match for the Klitschko brother’s when/if he finally gets a shot at one of their titles.

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Woods to return to work as a plasterer

Recently retired former International Boxing Federation light heavyweight champion Clinton Woods (42-5-1, 24 KO’s) will be returning to a regular type job now that he’s retired from boxing and will be now working as a plasterer according to reports. This was a job that Woods, 37, did in the past. However, he’ll only be working as a plasterer part time.

Apparently, Woods has done well financially while fighting as a pro boxer for the past 15 years, owns his own house and rents out others houses. Woods could be in demand as a trainer for fighters, but he says he doesn’t think he wants to do that.

In his last fight of his career on August 28th, Woods was defeated by unbeaten light heavyweight contender Tavoris Cloud by a 12 round unanimous decision loss. The fight was one-sided for the most part after the 6th round.

However, Woods looked good in the early rounds, but made a mistake of standing too close to Cloud and taking too many shots. Woods looked good enough to have beaten a lot of top light heavyweight contenders on that night, but he clearly used the wrong approach to fighting Cloud.

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Katsidis vs. Escobedo this Saturday

Australian Michael Katsidis (25-2, 21 KO’s) is looking forward to the action this Saturday night against lightweight contender Vicente Escobedo (21-1, 13 KO’s) in a 12 round bout for the interim World Boxing Organization title on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Marquez bout at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Katsidis, 29, will be facing 27-year-old Escobedo, a 2004 Olympian and one of Golden Boy Promotions best prospects. Katsidis expects the large American crowd to be against him in this fight, favoring instead American Escobedo. Katsidis wants to take the MGM crowd out of it as quick as possible, by dominating Escobedo.

Katsidis has had some hard times lately, losing two out of his last four fights to Joel Casamayor and Juan Diaz. However, he’s won his last two fights against Angel Hugo Ramirez and Jesus Chavez.