Vegas Sky: Boxing Returns to Caesars Palace
by Joe Souza - ringside
10/3 - Boxing was in fine form last night at the Caesar's Palace. There were title fights, knockouts, brawls and of course questionable calls. A packed and enthusiastic crowd filled and watched "the other" boxing card in the newly opened outdoor venue at the beautiful Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The evening began with a IBF world title fight in the super middleweight division between Kitchener, Canada's own Syd Vanderpool (who had his own Canadian cheering section) and St. Petersburg, FL native Jeff "Left Hook" Lacy, but not without O'Canada, which was sung by the daughter of hockey great Wayne Gretzky.
The fight maintained a good pace while it lasted. The first few rounds Vanderpool controlled the action from the outside with counters and his jab and Lacy just seemed to be content with trying to land a home run punch and go home. Vanderpool and Lacy don't seem to like each other as they hit on breaks and sometimes went low.
In the 4th, Lacy makes a comeback and hurts Vanderpool with a big shot, who in turn slows down his pace and is reduced to holding on at times. Lacy starts throwing uppercuts that Vanderpool seems to have no defense for.
The end comes when Lacy hurts Vanderpool, who was riding a seven-bout winning streak, with a right hook and causes him to retreat. Lacy followed up and hit Vanderpool a few more times and the referee stops the fight. All three judges had Lacy up at the time of the stoppage by scores of 67-66 (twice) and 68-65. Many on press row scoring the bout had Vanderpool winning up until the knockout.
Lacy becomes the first of the 2000 Olympic team to win a major world title and maintains his undefeated record at 17-0 with 14 KO's. Vanderpool falls to 35-3 with 23 KO's.
The second bout of the evening didn't quite live up to the lofty expectations of their first match on ESPN, but it was a good scrap nonetheless as Kassim "The Dream" Ouma took on Verno Phillips for the IBF junior middleweight championship of the world. [Ouma recorded a 10-round unanimous decision over Phillips in a memorable slugfest on Sept. 7, 2001]
The first two rounds, Phillips of Troy, NY, looked great as he pressed the action in the first defense of his IBF title. If there was any a case that a fighter got old during a fight, you could probably make a case for Phillips., as he seemed to go into a shell and after that, it was all Ouma.
Ouma of Palm Beach, FL, turned up the pace and Phillips never seemed to be able to match it nor show the urgency needed to win. Ouma rallied and hurt Phillips late in the 11th to score a 10-8 round and win the 12th on each of the scorecards to defeat Phillips again. Ouma, who was coming off a 10th-round TKO over Juan Carlos Candelo in an IBF elimination bout on January 3rd, nearly had Phillips out in the 12th, but the formerly game Phillips survived and relinquished his title to Ouma via unanimous decision by the scores 114-113 [twice] and 117-110.
The scoring was a little too close for comfort as two of the judges had only one point margins for Ouma, but he becomes the IBF junior middleweight champion with this impressive victory. With the win, Ouma moves to 21-1-1 with 13 KO's and Phillips drops to 38-10-1 with 20 KO's.
To knockout or be knocked out, that's the question. The "main-event" of the evening featured two heavyweights in DaVarryl Williamson and Wladimir Klitschko, both coming off of high profile KO losses. They both fought cautiously and turned off the crowd pretty quickly to open the fight.
The most compelling event going on at the time was a guy who was listening to the "other" fight on his cellphone, he had a more attentive audience than those who were in the ring 20 feet away. When he got disconnected, press row suddenly got back into watching the fight that we came to Las Vegas to cover.
Klitschko of Kiev, Ulraine, "pressed" the action and backed up Williamson of Washington, D.C with feints and half hearted jabs throughout the fight. Klitschko won the first three rounds. In the 4th, Klitschko backed Williamson up again and started to open up, but Williamson caught him with a straight right, that immediately dropped Klitschko and had to have Klitschko's trainer Manny Steward thinking, "here we go again".
Wladimir rallied and made it out of the round and Williamson seemed to realize that he wasn't the only one that could be knocked out. The 5th round had both fighters being more aggressive going for the win. The excitement was short lived as an accidental headbutt ended the fight.
Klitschko was declared the winner via fifth-round technical split decision. Two of the three scorecards had Klitschko ahead as Judges Chuck Giampa and Jerry Roth scored it 49-46 for Klitschko, while Doug Tucker ruled in favor of Williamson, 48-47.
After the decision was announced, both fighters seemed to be happy to not be knocked out, but there's always their next fight.
Photos courtesy of TOM CASINO/SHOWTIME.
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