By: William Holmes
Main Events Promotions put on a three bout card on the NBC Sports Network tonight live from the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut.
Philadelphia native “Fast” Eddie Chambers (36-3) made his cruiserweight debut tonight against Thabisco Mchunu (13-1). Chambers was a solid heavyweight contender coming off of a debatable loss to Tomasz Adamek after injuring his left arm early on in the bout.
Mchunu was the smaller fighter in both height and reach, but he had age and speed on his side. Chambers attempted to walk Mchunu down and trap the southpaw in a corner with his jab, but Mchunu was in excellent shape and countered Chambers all night long.
This was Mchunu’s first fight outside of South Africa, but he looked calm, patient, quick, and polished. Chambers was unable to use his size to his advantage and was nearly swept on the cards. The fight was littered with some boos during the lulls in the bout, but Mchunu picked up the action in the seventh round and even had Chambers acknowledging his power after receiving a combination.
Even Chambers’ corner must have known he was losing before the final round as they could be heard telling their fighter to roll the dice. Mchunu easily defeated a deflated Chambers with scores of 97-93, 99-91, 99-91.
Where Chambers goes from here is anyone’s guess, but the broadcast booth might be one viable option for the affable fighter.
The next bout of the night was between Tomasz Adamek (48-2) and Dominick Guinn (35-9-1). who was stepping in for an injured Tony Grano. Guinn and Adamek used to be sparring partners and it was pretty easy to guess who got the better of who during sparring after watching this bout.
Like usual, there was a decent amount of Polish fans in attendance chanting their fighter on. Guinn started off the bout well with a good first round. His lead left hook was landing and he looked to be the more powerful fighter. Unfortunately for Guinn this was his only good round.
Adamek began to turn the tide of the fight in the second round as his short hooks began to land and he was able to find good spacing in between him and Guinn. Adamek began to double up on his jab in the third round and his combinations were coming more freely. A bad cut opened up over the right eye of Guinn after a clash of heads in the third.
As the rounds progressed Adamek got stronger. His hooks were looping around the defense of Guinn and was finding their target on the head of his opponent. Guinn slowly tried to walk down Adamek, but he was getting punched with increasing regularity. Soon, he started to resemble a heavy bag as Adamek teed off on on him at will.
The ringside doctor closely checked the eye of Guinn before the start of the ninth round, but decided to let him continue fighting. Adamek only continued to pummel his overmatched opponent.
Tomasz Adamek wasn’t able to become the first person to stop Dominick “The Southern Disaster” Guinn. but he clearly won. The final scores were 98-92, 99-91, 99-91 for Tomasz Adamek. The question for Adamek is whether he can move up into the realm of the Kubrat Pulevs and David Hayes of the division now. If not, he is basically spinning his wheels.
The main event of the night was between the Curtis “Showtime” Stevens (24-3) and Saul Roman (37-9) in the middleweight division. Curtis Stevens is knocking on the door for a potential title fight and he was impressive tonight.
Roman looked to be the taller fighter inside the ring, and Stevens wasted little time in attacking. He blitzed Roman with hard combinations by the ropes and had him hurt so early in the first that had the referee was already looking at Roman closely. A hard left hook knocked Roman down, and he waited until the referee counted to eight for Roman to get back to his feet.
As soon as Roman got back to his feet, Stevens jumped right on him. It appeared that Stevens was beginning to tire when he landed another vicious left hook that put Roman down violently. The referee immediately waved off the fight, and gave Stevens the KO victory at 2:26 of the first round.
After the fight, Stevens made it clear he wants middleweight star Gennady “GGG” Golovkin next.
