01.09.07 – By Ron Hansen: Former IBF junior welterweight champion Juan Urango (18-1-1, 14 KOs) survived a first round battering to win a fourth round knockout victory over 38-year old Nasser Athumani (20-5-1, 16 KOs) on Friday night at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Urango, 28, making his first appearance since losing his IBF junior welterweight boxing title to Ricky Hatton in January 2007, appeared to be taking Athumani a little too lightly after knocking the Kenyan down with a right-left combination in the first round..
Urango soon discovered that Athumani could punch like a mule, because as soon as he got up, he staggered Urango with a powerful left hand right, right cross combination. Athumani staggered Urango again with another hard combination and spent the remainder of the round blasting the former 5-time Colombian national boxing champ with right hands and making him miserable.
Urango recovered well in between rounds, and avoided getting hit with anything major in round two. However, he still ate handful of powerful right hands thrown by Athumani, mostly because of Urango’s plodding style of fighting which uses very little defense.
In the third round, Urango went back to his usual stalking style of fighting, as he attempted to take out Athumani with every punch he threw. As in the previous two rounds, he found only limited success because he was forced to take a lot of shots from Athumani as he waded forward.
Early in the fourth round, Urango was getting hit a lot by Athumani, who at one point landed six consecutive left hand shots to the lumbering Urango’s face. However, Urango’s aggression paid off finally when he connected with three right hooks, followed by a left hook and another right hook that sent Athumani to the canvas. Upon getting up, Athumani indicated to the referee Sparkle Lee that he didn’t want to continue fighting. The bout was officially stopped at 2:59 of the fourth round.
Obviously, the bout was supposed to have been an easy return fight for Urango, but it showed that he still has a lot of work to do to shore up his leaky defense, as well as his deliberate style of fighting. As was the case in his fight with Hatton, Urango is fairly predictable and has problems with any kind of movement. His power, however, is a great equalizer, but not something that will be able to bail him out every time once he steps it up against the better fighters in the junior welterweight class.