Briggs by TKO over Koval, Vanda upset
 Danny Serratelli at Ringside (May 26, 2006)
The debut of ‘Gotham Boxing’ featured some impressive performances, talent and great matchmaking last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. The exciting night of action was capped off with a main event featuring two fighters who both looked like they could have lost a few more pounds, but made up for the extra weight with a little extra enthusiasm. Shannon Briggs weighed in at 273 and Chris ‘Special K’ Koval weighed in at 266, with both fighters coming in at the heaviest weight of their careers. Koval, 23-3 (18), to his credit, came to fight and tried to bring the fight to the bigger and more polished Shannon Briggs, 44-4-1 (41). Briggs, who seemed surprised that Koval came right at him, started a little slow, but started to work the jab and get into a rhythm before long. Koval was talking a lot and working hard, trying desperately press the action with Briggs, despite the fact that Briggs was a huge step up for Koval.
Koval was giving it his best shot, but his enthusiasm was only ably to take him so far. Once Briggs caught him clean in round number three, it was the beginning of the end for Koval. Briggs was putting all the added weight behind his punches and dropped Koval twice in the third round. Despite the fact that Koval somehow managed to make it out of the round, the damage was done. He had absorbed tremendous punishment that would have rendered lesser men unconscious and the fight was stopped in the corner at the end of round three. With the victory, Briggs captured the vacant USBA heavyweight championship.
In the co-feature, Minnesota light-middleweight Matt Vanda, 34-2 (21), lost a majority decision to a spoiler out of Wilson, North Carolina named Martinus Clay, 12-12-1 (4). After 8 rounds the judge's cards read 76-76, 77-75 and a pretty unbelievable 79-73. This was an excellent action packed fight in which both fighters landed some good leather. Vanda appeared to win the early rounds, while Clay came on to take some of the later rounds. Clay looked much better then you would have thought after looking at his record, however, this was not a case of Vanda underachieving, but of Clay overachieving. Both fighters performed well, but it appeared Vanda did enough to pick up the win in this one.
In a heavyweight special attraction, J.D. Chapman, 23-0 (20), won a boring unanimous decision over Edward Guitierrez, 15-1-1 (6). This was a slow moving bout that Chapman took by a unanimous decision by scores of 97-93 twice and 96-94.
On the undercard, Canada's female super-bantamweight, Noriko Kariya, 3-1-1, fighting out of Jersey City, New Jersey fought to a 4 round draw with Florida's Amanda Knight, 1-0-1. It appeared that Kariya took a couple rounds to get into her rhythm. The judges had the bout scored 39-37 for each fighter with the third judge scoring it 38-38.
Undefeated heavyweight, Tony Grano, 4-0-1 (4) also fought to a draw with Brooklyn, New York's Rodney Ray, 3-3-1 (3). All three judges scored the fight 57-57 over six rounds. Grano didn't look very polished in this one, but looked like he may have pulled it out as the aggressor for most of the fight. Ray, who had scored knockouts in all 3 of his wins, didn't do much except try to time the big right hand from time to time.
Opening the night was a women's 4 round light-welterweight bout featuring New York City's Chika Nakamura, 4-0 (1), against Miami Florida's Cynthia Jones, 1-7 (1). Jones put up a good fight, but in the end all 3 judges cards read the same, 60-54.
|
