By Wray Edwards, Photos© Wray Edwards/ESB. Last night (Friday Aug. 31) twenty-one year-old, Super Middleweight Marcus Johnson, now 12-0, 9 KO’s fought thirty-five year-old Levan Easley, now 17-15-2, 8 KO’s at the Westshore Doubletree Hotel in Tampa, Florida. The fights billed as the “Ballroom Brawl” were presented by One Punch Productions and Four Corners Promotions in association with Don King Promotions. Tampa, Florida continues to grow its attraction base for the sport of Boxing. Again, Terry Trekas of One Punch put on a nearly flawless home-town Boxing show which filled the venue.
The place was packed with Boxing luminaries and Boxing Announcer Mark Beiro brought them all, including new Tampa resident Angelo Dundee, into the ring for a group photo (see below). The Boxing equivalent of double or triple A baseball, these events are crucial to the sport, and give one an opportunity to see how careers are built or broken.. They are also a great place to get inside dope on what’s coming up. One such tidbit was provided by Dan Birmingham who told ESB that Jeff Lacy’s rotator cuff rehab is almost complete, and that they are aiming at an under-card slot for the eighth of December Mayweather-Hatton contest. Jeff said he feels fully recovered and good as new. Now, about those Boxing matches last night.
“Too Much” has quick hands, power and great focus. Marcus managed his fight plan with excellent pursuit and consistent accuracy. He used the ring well and made Levan pay when he got cut off.
Easley spent a great deal of time eating Johnson’s right, but that’s not to say…
that Johnson’s left was not in the picture.
Not long after the series of punishing rights shown above…
I caught sight of an object flying into the ring from my right. It turned out to be a towel (see near ref’s feet as he looks down at it) which Easley’s corner had thrown to stop the contest. Marcus was declared the winner at 1:39 of Round Four…
and Levan Easley shows respect. Marcus is a young guy and if he continues to fight and improve he will have an excellent career. His conditioning was obvious and his Boxing classical. One thing missing was an effective jab which would just about complete the package.
The first fight on the under-card was a Four Round Heavyweight bout between twenty-five year old Sean Burke from Orlando, Florida making his pro debut against Leonard Collier, 28, also from Orlando.
At 1:09 of the First Round Burke threw a punch which had ten written all over it and Collier went down and could not beat the count.
Burke looked pretty composed for this fight. He better get much tougher if he wants to run with the big dogs.
Then Light Heavyweight Adam Jaco took on Valentine Fortanelly for four rounds. Valentine was given an eight count in the Third Round and generally had a rough time of it.
“Rough” to say the least…before the fight was over Valentine had a really angry cut to his left eye.
After Four Rounds Jaco was awarded the UD.
Next Middleweights Manny Cotessis, 19, from Tarpon Springs met Adam Ortiz in a Four Round contest which was a challenge for him.
Cotessis was a hard worker and was very good on the inside as we see here with his right uppercut.
Ortiz was no slouch and got his licks in as he took the fight with Cotessis through the full distance.
Manny was the bigger man in scoring and he was awarded the UD for his night’s work.
Then we had a Six Round Heavyweight bout between Jamaica ‘s Leroy Thomas, 27 and John Cobb, 37 from Vero Beach. Although Cobb was tough and put up a good fight, he did get severely caught at times which led to his UD loss to Leroy.
Thomas poses here with his team including Dan Birmingham.
In the Co-Feature Event Cruiserweight Willie Chisholm, 28 from Gainsville met Jason Gant, 30, from Naples, Florida.
Willie and Jason blazed away at each other for eight rounds with neither appearing to gain a clear advantage. This put the Judges in a quandary with one calling for a draw and the other two voting Chisholm a slim Majority Decision victory. Even though he lost, Gant seemed very happy to just be there for the action as he helped raise Willie’s arm in victory.
As mentioned above, there was a room full of celebs who all jumped in the ring for a togetherness party. Among those present were Angelo Dundee, Winky Wright, Jeff Lacy, Mike Marrone and Pinklin Thomas. Most of them paused for photo shots and autographs with the happy fans.
Winky, of course, was not alone as he had brought one of his sparring partners to the event. I hear she’s got a pretty good left.
Speaking of our fair gender companions, there was a considerable bevy of beauties to keep us all up on the progress of rounds.
Except for the lighting which was a bit iffy, the whole show was just great. The hotel provided a great buffet with the best chocolate chunk cookies in this or any other universe for the sweet teeth in the crowd. Dan Birmingham was convinced that Jeff Lacy was going to be better than ever, and said he would like to see Jeff tune back up at the expense of Peter Manfredo and then get on with his career. ESB will visit Jeff in two or three weeks to get a progress report. See you at the fights.