By Tyson Bruce
Main Event:
In a main event that was reminiscent of the epic first round brawl between Kendall Holt and Ricardo Torres, young upstart Thomas Williams Jr. scored a first round stoppage over veteran Cornelius White, with both men taking hard trips to the canvas.
In a true cross roads fight, the undefeated but thoroughly untested Thomas Williams Jr. (15-0) met the veteran light heavyweight Cornelius White (21-2), who was coming off a destructive second round knockout at the hands of Sergey Kovalev.
The fight started out in explosive fashion when Williams dropped White, who’s never had the best chin, with a looping overhand left. White rose quickly and greeted the over anxious Williams with a picture perfect straight right hand–leaving the youngster sprawled out on the canvas. As the action resumed, however, White was quickly stunned and dropped with another series of punches. White got up on extremely shaky legs and referee Bobby Howard was very brave by letting the fight continue. Williams wasted little time in finishing off White, halting him with a barrage of unanswered punches against the ropes.
It was a dramatic entrance onto the world stage for twenty-six year old Williams, who improved to 16-0-0-(11). In the post fight interview Williams boasted about finishing White two rounds early than division titlist Sergey Kovalev. While Williams certainly isn’t ready for the elite of the 175-pound division, he certainly gained a boost of momentum with such a dramatic victory.
Co-Feature:
Former Jr. featherweight champion Rico Ramos, whose television career has been a prescription for insomnia, intermitted by some one punch knockouts, got back to winning ways when he defeated Jonathan Arellano, 14-2, via ten round unanimous decision.
After an uneventful first round, things started to heat up as Ramos scored two knockdowns in the fourth round, both on leaping left hooks. Ramos scored another knockdown in the fifth, with a left hook that was a virtual replay of the knockdowns in the third. It looked like it was just a matter of one more solid left hook and the fight would be over.
However, it was not to be, as Ramos became frustratingly passive for the remainder of the bout. Arellano actually managed to get in some better work in the sixth and seventh rounds, but didn’t have the ability or bravery to really take the action away from Ramos.
The bout finished with a chorus of boos, as Ramos, puzzlingly, taunted Arellano instead of trying to close the show. The final scores were98-88, 98-89, and 98-89. Ramos improved to 24-3-0-(12), but likely didn’t earn himself any new fans.
