By Jim Dower: In one of ESPN2’s better Friday Night Fight’s cards, 40-year-old Grady Brewer (28-12, 16 KO’s) pulled off a huge upset by stopping previously unbeaten junior middleweight contender Fernando Guerrero (21-1, 16 KO’s) in the 4th round of a scheduled 10 at the Frank Erwin Center, in Austin, Texas. Brewer went right hand crazy in the 4th, knocking Guerrero down twice, causing referee Jon Schorle to stop the fight at 2:16 with Guerrero face down on the canvas.

In the other interesting fight on the card, unbeaten welterweight prospect Karim Mayfield (14-0-1, 9 KO’s) stopped 34-year-old Steve Forbes (35-10, 11 KO’s) in the 10th round to get the win at 1:03 of the 10th. Mayfield hurt Forbes with a hard fight hand and then flurries on him until referee Gregorio Alvarez pulled the plug on the fight. However, the 30-year-old Mayfield looked hardly impressive, as he had a nasty habit of throwing one or two punches and then diving in for a clinch.

During the clinches, Mayfield often leaned, wrestled and would attempt to land sneaky shots while pulling away. It was almost like watching typical MMA fight where one guy traps another against the side of the cage while standing. Mayfield seemed to lack the confidence and/or ability to fight in close without grabbing, which was kind of strange given that he’s only 5’7″. A fighter that short has got to know how and feel comfortable with fighting on the inside, because that’s going to be their best chance of beating the taller fighters in the division.

Mayfield doesn’t appear to be comfortable on the inside without grabbing. He’s going to have major problems in the future when he faces taller guys that dominate him from the outside. Mayfield won’t be able to clinch and wrestle his way to a win, because he does very little other than landing short, weak punch during his wrestle filled clinches.

In the big stunner of the fight, Guerrero, ranked #6 by the WBC in the junior middleweight division, was caught by a big right hand from Brewer in the 4th and then taken out. Brewer really jumped on Guerrero after he had hurt him and fired off six or seven big wide right hands that got around Guerrero’s guard to put him down on the canvas and through the ropes. Guerrero got up but was dropped by a short right uppercut to the head that put Guerrero down face first. The referee didn’t allow Guerrero to get up from this knockdown, and put a stop to the bout. Guerrero was upset, of course, but the referee probably did him a big favor because Brewer still had a lot of gas in his tank and would have finished off Guerrero with more fight hands had the referee allowed it to continue.

In other action on the card, unbeaten junior middleweight prospect Javontae Starks (5-0, 4 KO’s) defeated Antonio Gamez (6-4-1, 1 KO’s). The final judges’ scores were 39-37 for Gamez, and 40-36 and 39-37 for Starks.