Saturday, February 18, 2017

Roy Jones, Jr. vs. Bobby Gunn - Friday, February 17th (Wilmington, DE)

On Friday, February 17th, I had the opportunity to cover the Roy Jones, Jr. vs. Bobby Gunn boxing card from the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington, Delaware.

In the opening bout of the evening, Dagoberto Aguero (11-0-0, 8 KOs) of the Dominican Republic defeated Uzbekistan’s Olimjon Nazarov (14-5-0, 8 KOs) by majority decision after six rounds of super bantamweight action. One judge scored the bout a draw (57-57), while the two other judges scored the bout 58-46 and 59-55, both in favor of Aguero.

The second bout of the evening featured lightweights Joey Tiberi, Jr. (14-2-0, 7 KOs) of Bear, Delaware defeated St. Joseph, Missouri’s Bryan Timmons (59-0, 5 KOs). The referee stopped the contest at 2:04 of the fourth and final round after Tiberi, the fan favorite, landed a series of blows to the body and head of the defenseless Timmons.

The third bout of the night featured Allentown’s Frank De Alba (21-2-2, 9 KOs) and veteran Mexican fighter German Meraz (55-42-1, 32 KOs). De Alba controlled the fight through six rounds of junior lightweight action on his way to a unanimous decision victory. All three judges scored the bout 60-54. Meraz last fought two weeks ago at the SugarHouse Casino in Philadelphia, where he was defeated via a six round unanimous decision there as well.

The fourth bout featured Kanat Islam (23-0-0, 19 KOs) of Kazakhstan and Robson Assis (16-4-0, 9 KOs) of Brazil. Despite suffering a bad cut above his right eye, the undefeated junior middleweight knocked out Assis with a powerful right hand to the head at the 2:12 mark of the first round. The fighter and his corner called out middleweight Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather in the post-fight interview.

In the main event, future Hall of Famer Roy Jones, Jr. (65-9-0, 47 KOs) faced bareknuckle boxing champion Bobby Gunn (21-7-1, 18 KOs) for the WBF Cruiserweight Title. From the outset, Jones controlled the tempo of the fight. He effectively used his jab, and landed several powerful right hands on Gunn. Gunn had difficulty throughout the early rounds landing punches on the legend. Trouble came in the seventh round when Jones landed a three-punch combo that stunned Gunn near the center of the ring. Jones showed mercy by not knocking out Gunn prior to the bell. Gunn, clearly hurt, failed to answer the bell in the eighth round resulting in a TKO victory for the 48 year-old Jones. It was announced in the post-fight interviews that cruiserweight Imamu Mayfield of New Jersey had called out the winner of this bout.

There were three four round professional bouts following the main event.

Dover’s Lamont Singletary (8-1-0, 5 KOs) knocked out Dan Biddle (9-6-0, 5KOs) of Hockessin at 1:49 of the first round for the Delaware State Cruiserweight Title.

Ikram Kerwat (7-1-0, 5 KOs) defeated Britain Hart (2-1-0, 2 KOs) by unanimous decision in awomen’s lightweight bout. All three judges scored the bout 40-36. Kerwat was trained by Roy Jones, Jr. in this fight.

The final bout of the evening featured light heavyweights Henry Stewart (3-0-0, 1 KO) of Canada and Akron’s Martez Williamson (2-16-0, 0 KO). Stewart defeated Williamson by majority decision. One judge had the fight scored 37-37, and the other two judges scored the bout 39-37 in favor of the undefeated Stewart.



MW


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