by Peter Mark Heintzelman, Photos by Peter Mark Heintzelman — click here to view photo gallery — The busiest woman boxer in the world, Belinda “Brown Sugar” Laracuente, took the train from New York City northbound, to challenge the champion, Jamie “The Hurricane” Clampitt, in a ten round co-feature event of the evening, for the IWBF Lightweight Championship. The belt was at stake on Jimmy Burchfield’s Classic Entertainment & Sports, Inc., “Rumble At the River,” at the Twin River Events Center, in Lincoln, Rhode Island, this past Friday.
The fight started more than 24 hours before the first bell rang, when, at the weigh in the day before, Clampitt came in overweight. Trainer/manager, Melissa” Huracan” Hernandez, earned her stripes, verbally wrestling with Jimmy Burchfield over the weighty issue of rules. Frankie “G” Globuschutz, of the International Women’s Boxing Federation, called in and saved the day with a rule interpretation as to the weight deadline. Thank you, Frankie! And thereafter, Clampitt shed the pounds, and the fight went on, to the sold out arena fans’ ultimate delight..
Although Clampitt retained her belt, it took her the full ten rounds scheduled, for her to convince the judges to give her the non-unanimous nod, 95-95 and 97-93 twice.
The crowd whistled at the outcome, as many thought that Laracuente should have won the belt.
“Brown Sugar” seemed to show ring generalship and a slick and evasive style.
But the judges seemed to favor Clampitt’s come-forward style of body punches.
Laracuente’s game plan, which consisted of trying to goat her opponent into running out of gas in the early rounds. When Jamie finally appeared to be gassed out, Laracuente shifted into high gear, inflicting pain upon Clampitt in the later rounds. But, after a rest on the stool between rounds, Clampitt dug deep into her reserve, and came back with unexpected energy to match Laracuente’s efforts in the final rounds.
After the decision was announced by ring announcer, J D Vena, and the belt was re-wrapped around the champion, Clampitt, Laracuente heard from Burchfield that she fought like a champion.
“I hear that all the time,” said Laracuente, “but I never seem to get the win.”
Clampitt, of Warwick, Rhode Island, climbs to 19-4-1, 7 KO’s, while Belinda and crew return to the Big Apple with a record of 23-22-3, 9 KO’s, but maybe, more importantly, with a lot more fans than she had before coming to Twin River.
Although losing the bout, Laracuente was a leading candidate in our book, for fighter of the night.