27.01.06 – By Shon Macklin: Tonight, Junior Middleweight Kassim Ouma stopped Francisco Mora in the 8th round at the Desert Diamond Casino in Sahuarito, Arizona. The referee saw enough after a straight left hand thrown by Ouma put Mora down for the second time of the evening in the 8th. The first knockdown came in the second round, after an onslaught of punches shook Mora’s head violently, eventually staggering the fighter who refused to go down after the barrage of punches. Unfortunately for Mora, his legs could not keep him up and started to fold under the pressure.. Francisco held on to Ouma’s left arm as he fell and never let go of Kassim. However, his knee did touch the canvas and it was evident that he was in fact knocked down, despite his efforts to stay erect.
While the fight continued through the rounds, Ouma maintained an aggressive pace and pulled away from Mora on the score cards as the rounds progressed. Kassim Ouma’s precise punching and combinations were very impressive throughout the bout. He looked calm and relaxed at put punches right on the mark and seemed to have hurt Mora repeatedly for most of the action. After the sixth round round, Francisco Mora was not competitive at all, although he managed to land two of his best right hands of the night, and a left hand that sent sweat flying off of Ouma’s cranium in the 7th round.
Yet, Kassim Ouma just kept punching and continued to distance himself from Mora with excellent jabs and straight left hands. By the 8th round, ir seemed like it was only a matter of time before this fight would come to a halt, and it finally did when a well placed left cross thrown by Ouma was the coupe de grace, as Mora went crashing down to the canvas. He hesitantly got up, however, the referee continued to count to eight, not being satisfied with Mora’s valiant efforts and called the fight off. Kassim Ouma improves his record to 23-2-1.
ESPN aired two other fights with young Olympic prospect, Welterweight Rock Allen, who knocked out Mike Walker 2:22 in the first round. Allen put Walker down twice with vicious punches to the head and body and he couldn’t get up after the second knockdown. Rock Allen improves his record to 5-0.
Another Olympian Lightweight, Vicente Escobedo wins over Jesus Perez via sixth round stoppage. Perez seemed to unravel in the sixth round, which caused his corner to step into the ring, forcing the referee to disqualify Perez, giving Escobedo the knockout victory. Vincente Escobedo improves his record to 9-0.
Wayne McCullough served as Guest Analyst with in studio Brian Kenny. Where they both talked about the Manny Pacquiao , Erik Morales fight, including McCullough’s bout with Naseem Hamed.
Ringside guest included former undisputed middleweight champion, Bernard Hopkins, who still claims that Jermain Taylor did not beat him. But moved on to discuss his future endeavors besides promoting fights, which is why he was there firstly, to support one of his fighters, Kassim Ouma.
He mentioned that he would be interested in a match with Roy Jones , but Roy may be looking to fight the winner of the Jeff Lacy, Joe Calzaghe, however. If this is the case , Hopkins said he would be looking to fight Antonio Tarver at Light Heavyweight.