By Ryan Wardle: On November 17 Johnathon Banks walked into the ring looking to many as a stepping stone for heavyweight prospect Seth Mitchell. However, Banks floored Mitchell three times in the second round en route to a second round TKO victory. The two fighters will square off again on the undercard of Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees on February 16th in Atlantic City, New Jersey to see if that victory was a fluke.
Both fighters have experience against competition with limited backgrounds. Banks only loss was to Tomasz Adamek who was easily his toughest opponent, a former champion at both light heavyweight and cruiserweight. Adamek won after dropping Banks and then landing a flurry of punches to earn an eighth round stoppage.
Mitchell faced his toughest competition in Chazz Witherspoon and won by third round TKO. This sounds impressive but Witherspoon is not the toughest of opponents and he still managed to rattle Mitchell in the first, causing him to clinch. Mitchell left himself open to right hands early and Witherspoon took advantage of that. He also left himself open in the Banks fight.
The more experienced Banks landed a hard counter shot that led to an early second round knockdown. The look on Mitchell’s face after the first knockdown was pure shock and he never fully recovered. Banks knocked him down twice more after having what amounted to be target practice. After the third knockdown the referee stopped the fight. Mitchell, to be fair, did dominate the first round of the fight and even seemed to hurt Banks. But after having his chinned tested he failed miserably.
Mitchell is an athlete and former Michigan Sate linebacker, yet he is inexperienced and has showed signs of poor defense in his two most recent bouts. Banks has more experience but is also the smaller fighter. In the grand scheme of heavyweight division this fight is not one that is highly anticipated, but will most likely be entertaining. Both fighters have weaknesses that the other can easily expose, the only prediction that can be made in this fight is that it will likely end in knockout.
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