FORREST DEFEATS QUARTEY
By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist

New York, NY (IB – August 05, 2006) – From the Madison Square Garden theatre in New York, and televised on HBO, Vernon “The Viper” Forrest improved his record to (38-2, 28 KOs) by winning a unanimous decision over Ike “Bazooka” Quartey (37-3-1, 31 KOs).

This fight turned out to be very competitive throughout the ten rounds and it was a very tough fight to score. There were no knockdowns in the fight and neither fighter appeared to be badly hurt at any point in the fight. Vernon was deducted one point for an accidental low blow in the ninth round by referee Arthur Mercante Jr. after a couple of warnings for punching low in the earlier rounds.

The judge’s scorecards were as follows:

Judge Tony Paolillo – 96-93
Judge Melvina Lathan – 95-94
Judge Steve Weisfeld – 95-94

After the announcement was made, there were roars of boos throughout the garden per a lot of observers felt that Quartey won the fight. I personally thought Forrest did enough to win the fight because was controlling the fight in the 2nd half of the action. While Quartey did appear to be busier, he just didn’t seem to be effective with his aggressions and it was Forrest who seemed to be landing the harder punches. Quartey said after the fight, “You saw the fight, they saw the fight, I won the fight.”

Forrest, who is a former two-time world champion and fighter of the year in 2002, is on a comeback trail at the 154lb weight class after suffering two consecutive losses to Ricardo Mayorga in 2003 as a welterweight fighting at 147lbs, followed by a two year layoff due to a shoulder injury that resulted in having surgery to repair it. This fight with Quartey marked Vernon’s 3rd fight at 154lb class and Forrest wants to become a world champion again.

It will be interesting to see who Forrest is able to land a fight against next in this 154lb division, which also includes the likes of Oscar De La Hoya, as well as Sugar Shane Mosley, who Forrest owns two victories over. It’s commendable for Forrest to be back in action at this level coming off the shoulder injury and a two-year layoff. Congratulations goes out to Vernon and his future looks pretty bright now fighting at this Jr. Middleweight level.

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Ron Brashear can be contacted at brashear@insideboxing.com, ron@brasheargear.com