Tomaz Adamek Stops Bobby Gunn to Retain IBF Cruiser Title!

Tomaz Adamek Stops Bobby Gunn to Retain IBF Cruiser Title!

By Ken Hissner at rinngside, Doghouse Boxing (July 12, 2009)

Before a packed house at Newark, New Jersey’s Prudential Center, Tomaz Adamek, 38-1 (26) of Poland, now Jersey City, defended his IBF cruiserweight title stopping Bobby Gunn, 21-4-1 (18), of Hackensack, who retired after the 4th round Saturday night.

Kathy Duva’s Main Events has found a home for Adamek. Gunn was certainly outgunned from the start but gave a good account getting through 4 rounds. Near the end of the 4th he took 10 unanswered

punches that must have convinced him he wouldn’t be going out on his shield. His corner informed referee Earl Brown the fight was over. When Gunn did land his left hook his feet seemed to leave the ground not causing any damage to the champion. He was able to land against Adamek who showed little respect for Gunn’s punching power, in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Near the end of the 3rd Adamek rocked Gunn letting him know who was in charge. The ending seemed to leave the fans shortchanged.

Hopefully this will bring the mandatory challenger Steve “USS” Cunningham in next for their anticipated rematch from last December. Cunningham defeated former champion Wayne Braithwaite in Florida Saturday night over 12 rounds in an elimination match.

In the first of four 8 round bouts Israel’s Ran Nakash, 19-0 (15) remained unbeaten stopping William Bailey, 10-17-2, of Chesapeake, Virginia, at 1:49 of the 4th round. Nakash worked on the body of Bailey throughout the fight. Bailey continued to come forward in a crouch and was an open target. The fight itself was not pretty and the end came suddenly as it seemed a right to the body took Bailey down as a right to the head followed that even the slow motion replay could not make clear whether there was any contact. Referee Earl Morton had his hands full breaking the two apart with nothing but holding and hitting inside by these cruiserweights. Two of the judges gave Bailey the 1st round though he received a small cut outside the right eye from a clash of heads.

Henry Crawford, 22-0-1 (10), of Paterson looked like a pad man for the entire 8 rounds catching almost everything that Kaseem Wilson, 12-2-1 (4), of Philly, threw on the gloves. Except for an even 1st round Crawford swept the last 7 rounds on all 3 judges score cards. It was one of those forgettable fights. Crawford did nothing to alarm the welterweight contenders such as Wilson’s stablemate, contender Mike Jones about.
Scores of 79-73 and 80-72 (twice) were expected. Randy Neumann was the referee.

Curtis “Showtime” Stevens, 21-2 (15), of Brooklyn, came in the ring masked like a Palestine Liberation member. He would proceed to dismantle Piotr Wilczewski, 22-1 (7), who had no answer for the hard punching super middleweight being stopped at 1:46 of the 3rd round. A right uppercut in the 1st round had Wilczewski down. Near the end of the round he had his opponent in trouble again. Wilczewski use’d his longer reach in the 2nd round winning the judges vote. In the 3rd round Wilczewski threw a right at the same time Stevens threw a left hook, and down went the Polish visitor. He got up taking the count and was complaining to referee Morton about something. Stevens jumped on him driving him to the ropes with an onslaught that finally had Morton call a stop. This writer counted over 40 punches delivered by Stevens with but a couple in return before Referee Morton stopped it. Stevens played to the crowd going to the four corners who reacted with boo’s throughout the arena.

The overhead screen showed Poland’s cruiserweight Mateusz Masternak, 13-0 (8), prior to his fight with Brooklyns, Naser Mohamed Aly, 4-3 (2). Masternak looked bad shadow boxing. When the fight started he didn’t look much better but was in with an opponent who probably had no amateur background. Masternak spent 4 rounds jabbing to Aly’s mid-section. Even this brought cheers from the crowd. When Ali did return punches Masternak backed up. Talk about low expectations of their Polish fighters. In the 5th round Masternak landed left uppercut’s dropping Aly twice before referee Randy Neumann put a stop to it at 0:36 of the round.

Debuting Delen Parsley, 1-0 (1), of Brooklyn dropped the first two rounds but came back to take the 3rd round and stop Tyrone Miles, 1-1, of Camden, at 1:47 of the 4th round. The referee was Morton.

In the best fight on the card middleweight Denis “Momma’s Boy” Douglin, 5-0 (3), of Morganville, New Jersey, came out and got dropped by a wild left hook from the muscular Lamar “Prince of Pain” Harris, of St. Louis. Before the round was over Doughlin had Harris out on his feet showing very good hand speed and accuracy. The next two rounds were very spirited with both fighters going for a knockout and Douglin being the more effective. In the 4th and final round Harris received a cut over his left eye but it did not stop him from throwing hay makers that Doughlin easily by this time avoided. All judges had the score 38-37 for Doughlin as did this writer. Southpaw Doughlin finally had some competition after an outstanding amateur career.

The matchmaker was J. Russell Peltz.

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Ken at: kenhissner@yahoo.com