By Tyson Bruce
South Africa’s Thabiso “the Rock” Mchunu, 17-1-0-(11 KO’s), continued his meteoric rise up the cruiserweight ranks by dishing out a boxing lesson to the always-durable Garret Wilson. Mchunu used his massive advantage in speed and skills to utterly dominate the very one-dimensional Wilson throughout the ten rounder. Mchunu, a southpaw, stunned Wilson in the first round with straight left-right hook combination and dominated the second stanza so dramatically that some judges might have scored it 10-8 in favor of Mchunu. The bout took on a repetitive pattern after that as Mchunu chose not to go for the kill but instead was content to outbox Wilson with his footwork and slick counter-punching. Mchunu began to tire at the end of the bout, which probably allowed Wilson to win the ninth and tenth rounds. Mchunu had a point deducted in the final stanza for holding. The final scores read: 96-93 (way to close), 99-90, 98-91.
In an unexpectedly thrilling junior lightweight clash, Karl “Dynamite” Dargan, 17-0-0-(9 KO’s), overcame a second round knockdown and some scary moments to knockout the very game Angino “The Nightmare” Perez, 16-6-0-(14 KO’s). Dargan was put in the rare position of being the shorter fighter against the 6-2’ Perez—who used his size and reach to pressure Dargan throughout the bout. Dargan used his hand speed advantage to outbox Perez in the first two stanzas. Perez, however, found his range when he decked Dargan with right-left combination in the third round. Perez was lucky not to be disqualified when he blatantly hit Dargan while he was on the canvas.
Dargan responded well by coming back to outbox a knockout hungry Perez in the fourth round. Dargan put the icing on the cake when he lured Perez into a beautiful counter right uppercut that sent “The Nightmare” sprawling onto the canvas. Perez beat the count but was badly stunned. Dargan, contrary to his cautious reputation, went right for the kill, as he backed Perez up to the ropes with body shots and finished him off with a blistering right hand to head. Perez went down face first. Time was 1:32 of the fifth. With the dramatic victory, Dargan figures to be only a couple fights away from the title picture.