By Jim Dower: #2 ranked World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight contender former 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Odlanier Solis (17-0, 12 KO’s) from Cuba defeated #1 ranked WBC contender 40-year-old American Ray Austin (28-5-4, 18 KO’s) by a 10th round disqualification on Friday night at the American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida. Austin was disqualified after first bending Solis over the ropes and leaning on him to the point where the two fighters were in danger of falling out of the ring.
Austin was badly hurt at the time and taking shots. He appeared to be on the verge of being knocked out. After the referee and Solis’ promoter helped push and pull Austin and Solis off the ropes, Austin landed a right hand before the referee Tommy Kimmons gave permission for the action to be restated. This led to Austin being immediately disqualified for the shot. It didn’t really whether he was disqualified or not. Solis was about to take him out anyway, so this was merely the referee stopping a fight that was about to end anyway.
For the most part, Solis dominated the action on Friday night with looping right hands and short bursts of activity. Solis had problems landing shots a lot of the time due to his lack of height and reach. He often had to lunge forward and throw long shots in order to land with any kind of power. The bad thing is that Solis will now be fighting WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, 6’8″, within the next 100 days and it’s not going to go well for Solis unless he improves dramatically from his performance against Austin.
In the 5th round, Solis knocked Austin down with a hard jab. Before that, Solis had been showing some offense for a change, landing hard combinations that Austin seemed to be taking without any problems. Solis was unable to finish Austin off after knocking him down, as he missed with a lot of punches and just looked weak with wild shots. The little bit of exertion that Solis used in trying to take Austin out caused Solis to be gassed for the next four rounds, as he did zero in rounds six through nine, other than plodding forward and just taking shots from Austin the whole time. It was strange to see Austin dominating someone like this, because he generally looks so bad in his fights. But Solis was like a walking punching bag for four rounds until the 10th. I’ve seen a fighter gas out before but Solis puts a new meaning to it with his performance against Austin.
In the 10th round, Solis finally was rested enough to start throwing punches again and he quickly hurt Austin with a combination. Austin then tried to lean on Solis in what appeared to be an effort to get him to fall down. Austin succeeded but the referee then took off one point for the take down from Austin. After the action resumed, Austin bent Solis over the ropes and then followed that with a right hand after the referee had righted them. At this point, Austin was disqualified.
Regrettably, Solis looked hardly impressive in the bout. He came into the fight weighing a porky 260, which is actually eight pounds lighter than in his last fight in March when he came in at 268 for his fight against Carl David Drumond. Only 6’1″, the weight made Solis sluggish, slow and unable to fight hard for more than brief spurts without gassing out. Solis seemed to need a round to recover every time he would fight in a sustained manner. Luckily for him, Austin looked pitiful on offense, only able to throw the weakest of jabs and lazy looking right hands and left hooks. Austin just looked old and had zero power to speak of.
Solis didn’t have much power either. He lacks power at the heavyweight level, and the hand speed he used to have seems to be disappearing through age and the amount of weight he’s put on since turning pro three years ago. Solis is starting to look older and the fat on his frame seems to be slowing him down to the point where he’s not fighting at the same level he was when he first turned pro. In the Olympics, Solis weighed 200 pounds and was able to fight hard for 4 rounds without gassing. It’s sad that he’s put on so much weigh since moving up to the pro ranks.
In other action on the card:
Ricardo Mayorga TKO 9 Michael Walker
Tavoris Cloud UD 12 Fulgencio Zuniga
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