By Paul Strauss: Tim Coleman and Vernon Paris, junior welterweights, exchanged insults and fired punches at each other prior to their Friday Night Fight bout at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, Calif. Coleman admitted that he wanted to punch Paris in the face every time he saw him, and proceeded to try and make good in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying.
Their childish behavior begged the question about whether they would lose their cool (and temper), and leave themselves vulnerable?
Sergio “The Latin Snake” Mora sat in for the absent Teddy Atlas, who is busy getting Alexander Povitkin ready for his upcoming bout with Ruslan Chagaev the 27th of this month in Thurgen, Germany. Prior to the start of the action, the Latin Snake expressed the opinion that the fight was going to be a chess match in spite of what occurred prior to the bout.
He quickly admitted he was wrong, because both men came out strong, and immediately started firing hard shots at the opening bell. Paris looked bigger and stronger, and Coleman looks a bit like Timothy Bradley, but it was quickly apparent that he didn’t have the strength or power of Bradley. Just as round one ended, Paris caught Coleman with a good right that shook him up.
Coleman came back strong in the second, and even managed to score a flash knockdown via a good short right counter. Paris didn’t appear to be hurt. The infighting was intense, and both men were very active.
On several occasions Coleman seemed to be winning the inside battle because he was able to smother Paris. However, Paris was throwing the harder shots, and seemed to have better reflexes. He also seemed to be “seeing” Coleman’s shots.
Already by the third round Paris was scoring well to the body. He used a good one/two, and then followed with a straight right to the body, and then doubled his left hook to the body. The punches seemed to take a little wind out of Coleman’s sails, but Paris suffered a small cut over his left eye.
Paris continued to score well by going up and down with his shots, but the rounds were very close. Coleman would come out strong, and then the tide would shift, and Paris would slow him down with hard shots.
In the sixth round, Paris landed some particularly hard body shots, which put Coleman down twice. The second was at the end of the round, so Coleman was able to make it to the bell. He said he was all right, but a fighter doesn’t quickly recover from the kind of body shots he took. His corner men rightfully seemed worried.
Round seventh ended quickly with when Paris resumed his body attack. Coleman wilted to the canvas, and the referee jumped in to end the action at 0.27 seconds of the seventh. Paris remains undefeated at 25-0 with the USBA light welterweight title.
During the breaks, there was some talk of Kelly Pavlik pulling out of his fight with Darryl Cunningham, scheduled for tomorrow night. Nothing new was revealed, but the consensus seemed to be that Kelly seriously damaged his creditability, and would find it hard to get a promoter and network to take him seriously.
However, it seems obvious that Kelly doesn’t care, and is convinced he’s been taken advantage of and was in danger of it happening again. He seems content to sit for a while and let his situation improve. This is nothing new in the world of boxing, or sport for that matter. Odds are Kelly will come out of things okay, and will once again be in line for a big fight.