By: Danny Serratelli, ringside- KEA Boxing’s “Wildwood Wars” lived up to its billing last night from the Oceanfront Arena in the Wildwoods Convention Center in Wildwood, New Jersey. In KEA Boxing’s 10 th show to date, “The Polish Raging Bull”, Pawel Wolak, 18-0, 13 KO’s was very impressive in a dominant performance over “The Contender” Season 1 participant, Jonathan “Reid Dog” Reid, 34-8, 18 KO’s.. In the co-feature of the evening, hometown hero, Wildwood, New Jersey’s Chuck “The Professor” Mussachio had a rough time with the Bronx, New York’s Victor Paz, 9-5, 1 KO, but managed to overcome adversity and capture a split decision victory in their exciting light heavyweight bout.
Mussachio appeared to win the early rounds boxing, but Paz made it clear by the middle of the fight that he did not make the trip south to Mussachio’s hometown to accommodate the home town favorite. Despite the fact that Mussachio seemed to be outboxing Paz early, Paz was slowly gaining confidence and roughing Mussachio up. Mussachio used his jab and movement, while Paz was aggressive and showed that he came to Wildwood with an upset on his mind.
After some good body work and a couple of well timed and placed low blows in the 6 th, Mussachio was visibly bothered. The look on Mussachio’s face after a low blow in round 6 along with the blood from Mussachio’s nose seemed to revitalize Paz. It was also revealed that Mussachio had an injured, possible broken right hand. As a result, Mussachio had to battle adversity and use all of the experience he picked up in over 100 amateur fights and his 10 prior professional fights to box the last couple rounds and prevent the motivated Paz from pulling off the upset.
When the final bell rang the crowd was on their feet in anticipation as the decision appeared to be up for grabs. While Paz clearly came on strong and won some of the later rounds, it appeared that Mussachio had put enough of the early rounds in the bank. When the decision was announced, Mussachio and his fans could only sit back and listen to ring announcer extraordinaire, Henry Hascup announce the split verdict by the scores of 77-75 twice for Mussachio, along with 77-76 for Paz. Chuckie and his fans were relieved to hear that his undefeated record would remain intact.
Despite the fact that Pawel Wolak is from Mount Arlington, more than a couple of hours north of Wildwood, New Jersey, he still brought his legions of predominantly Polish fans with him to watch him step up his level of opposition against Jonathon Reid. In a junior middleweight fight that looked like a lot of questions about both fighters would need to be answered, Wolak did exactly what he always does and once again silenced many of his critics.
Reid, who had Philadelphia crowd favorite, “Mighty” Ivan Robinson working his corner looked to be in top shape, but he just couldn’t contend with the tremendous amount of pressure and number of punches that Wolak throws. While Reid attempted to work behind a jab and keep Wolak off balance, Wolak fought his regular fight and simply overwhelmed Reid.
Wolak was particularly effective mixing up his attack to the head and body and working behind a subtle defense while landing powerful left hooks and uppercuts. Unable to keep Wolak off of him, Reid took a knee and an 8 count in the 4th round to try to regroup. However, the knockdown sent Wolak’s fans into an uproar and Wolak seemed to feed off of the electricity his fans created in the arena. Wolak pursued Reid relentlessly and quickly dropped him again. Reid rose from the canvas, but he could not contend with the pressure applied by Wolak. Reid quickly found himself pinned against the ropes taking punishment that he had no answer for and fight was stopped by the referee at 2:09 of round number 4 as Reid’s corner threw the towel.
Undercard:
Middleweights- Patrick Majewski, 6-0, 4 KO’s won by (KO 1, 1:48) Nick Collins, 4-4, 4 KO’s
Maryland’s Nick Collins who has fought 5 of his 8 fights against undefeated opponents has a deceiving record and packs a big punch, but Majewski was on a mission to win over the large Polish crowd that was there to see Pawel Wolak. Majewski fights out of Atlantic City, but like Wolak, he is also a Polish-American fighter. Majewski was impressive and composed as he quickly dispatched of Collins.
Light Welterweights- Linwood Hurd, 2-0-2 won by (Split Decision, 40-36, 39-37, 37-39) Clinton B. Douglass, 2-1, 2 KO’s
Douglass came to fight and the reason for the disparity on the score cards is that both men fought hard and it was difficult fight to score. When the final bell rang it wasn’t clear who’s “0” would go, but local prospect, Hurd was awarded the decision.
Light heavyweights- Bobby Jordan, 3-0-1, 2 KO’s won by (KO 2, 1:38) Denys Lozada, 5-2, 2 KO’s
This was the upset of the night. While Paz (vs. Mussachio) and Douglass (vs. Hurd) came into the backyard of their opponents and almost pulled off big upsets in exciting fights, they ultimately left with split decision losses. Jordan came from Norfolk Virginia and did not leave the fight in the judges’ hands as he scored the knockout. It appeared Jordan hurt Lozada to the body and was later revealed that Lozada had a hand injury. Either way, Lozada went down and took the full 10 count.