24.02.06 – By Wray Edwards at Ringside, Photos © Wray Edwards — large photo gallery — Miami’s Glencoff Johnson (44-10-2,29 KO’s) and Winterhaven’s Richard Hall (27-5-0, 25 KO’s) went the distance tonight and they didn’t dawdle along the way. In a twelve round whackfest to determine a World Champion for the vacant the IBA Light Heavyweight title, the two boxers blasted away at each other to the limit of their abilities.
Johnson took only one breather. For most of the seventh round he made only symbolic punches…sort of going through the motions. During the rest of the fight he let it all hang out. Hall, on the other hand, went full throttle most of the way and paid a terrible price for his non-stop assaults. Glen hammered Hall with lefts. The word “hammered” seems most appropriate as Johnson worked a punch which was not quite a jab and not quite drop-shot. The strike was like when one makes a fist and pounds down like Khrushchev did at the United Nations.
Hall got right to it and gave Johnson all he could handle at times.
There was absolutely no quit in Richard as he absorbed amazing punishment for the privilege of getting to Glen now and then. Johnson had Hall in real trouble many times, but the guy just would not go down. Richard’s reach advantage was a major factor in keeping him in the contest. That was a mixed blessing to say the least. There was a bit of the red stuff to be lost for his tenacity.
Towards the end of the fight Glen was firing at will and several around the ring wondered just how beneficial the Ref’s patience was for Richard. Still, in the most dire moments, Hall somehow found the grit to fire back and marginally defend himself…Just enough to keep the ref from waving it over. Everyone in the room was amazed at Hall’s ability to hang in there.
Finally, the twelfth ran its course and the Judges were now in charge. Johnson was given the UD by a comfortable margin and became the new IBA LHW Champion. True to form, Hall would still not relent and insinuated himself into Johnson’s post fight interview to challenge Glen to another go. Can you spell glutton for punishment?
No matter…Johnson is the new IBA champion and posed for his victory
In the semi-main event Joel Casamayor was back in action against Antonio Ramirez as he seems ready to resume his career once again. Ramirez was in action last December 9th in a losing effort against Mike Anchondo in New York.
He did less well opposite Joel who encouraged Antonio to go nappy-time in the fifth round. Ramirez lay on his side for a bit after being pronated and appeared to be weighing his options. Soon he rolled on his back and stared up at the lights as the ref waived him out.
Casamayor has been infrequent in the ring lately and this match was pretty much in the warm-up category. His footwork was pretty for the most part, but he always seems to want to throw in one or two straight –back pullouts at which point he gets soundly rapped in the snoot. Ramirez caught him this way a couple of times.
Sultan, Angelo, Zab, Roberto, Shannon, and many others were there in force. The evening started out with some pretty weird mishaps. While the rigging crew was putting the proper tension on the ropes, there was a tremendous snapping bang. It seems a tension cable under the ring had let go and all the ropes immediately sagged like hot vermicelli. It took forty-five minutes to correct the problem with some tactful advice from ESB regarding removal of the undersized karabiners.
As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, a rack light right over Mr. Dundee failed, dropped a shower of sparks and lit a flame for about ten minutes.
In heavy weight action, Billy (The Kid) Zumbrum from Ogden, Utah defeated Stacy (Big Foot) Frazier who took the fight on short notice when Timor Ibragimov withdrew due to illness.
As usual, Cima Georgevich and the whole gang at the Hard Rock did a great job of making the media, the mostly full fan-house and the boxers feel welcome and roundly entertained. Warrior Boxing under the watchful eye of their fine management team brought a great show to the arena. See you at the fights.