Sharkie's Machine February 17, 2006
"A U.D., A D.Q. and a T.K.O.?"
By Frank Gonzalez Jr.

February 17, 2006 - Friday night in Memphis Tennessee, hot Welterweight prospect, Delvin Rodriguez (18-1-1-10 KO's) was the winner by default against long armed, low-blowing, fellow Dominicano, Alexis Divison (16-3, 12KO's), who wore thin on the patience of referee Bill Clancy, by constantly throwing low punches and hitting behind the head. Clancy could have taken points earlier but only issued warnings. After repeated warnings and another low blow immediately following his last warning, Clancy disqualified Divison on the spot. It was a bit of an over reaction.

I had Alexis Divison up two rounds to one before the DQ. Delvin Rodriguez, a slow starter, was getting cracked fairly regularly in all three rounds. His lazy defense allowed Divison to effectively exploit him. Long and lanky, Divison misjudged his spacing and his punches were arriving too early and too low when he went to the body. Regardless the reason, the ref has to enforce the rules. Clancy's timing for the DQ was questionable though, since Divison was actually winning the fight and many of the fouls looked incidental as opposed to intentional. He could have taken a second point, leaving it to Divison to clean it up, or force a third and final point deduction, leading naturally to disqualification.

Delvin Rodriguez was riding the wave of three successive knockouts coming into this fight. He was the "name guy" in this one, but didn't put on the good show that would have enhanced his value. According to the preflight rambles, Delvin was the easy favorite over his fellow countryman, who to this point, has fought only very limited opposition.

Alexis Divison was, in my view, getting off the better punches when he threw clean shots. He kept a functional distance and was able to punch holes in the defense of Rodriguez, whose best asset is his offensive firepower. Shades of early Andrew Golota?

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In an earlier bout, Jr. Welterweight, Lamont Peterson (16-0, 7 KO's) took on the very game, Jose Moreno (12-2), who showed a good chin and heart but was unable to keep up with the more energetic Peterson, who easily out boxed him and won by scores of 99-91 and 100-90 twice.

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I know there's a rule that if one fighter is knocked out of the ring, he has 20 seconds to get back into the ring or he is considered knocked out. I was unaware that if a fighter bumps his opponent out of the ring with his backside and not with a punch, and the opponent can't get back into the ring in a timely fashion, the bumper gets the win. That was exactly what went down in the last fight.

Big Heavyweight Prospect, Alonzo Butler (21-0-1, 16 KO's, 6'3", 250-pounds) got a gift decision of a TKO victory over Terry Porter (15-18-3, 9 KO's, 6'1", a buck ninety five), when he charged into Porter, swinging and missing followed by an ass bumping of Porter out of the ring.

Porter seemed hurt enough from the tumble to the table to not make it back into the ring in a timely manner. The ref could've called an official time out to get Porter back in the ring. If not, it should have been called a No Contest.

Porter has provided his services to enhance the standings of many 'name brand' up and comers, wasn't really there to win anyway, so perhaps it was just expedient to call it the way it was called, as controversial as it was.

With the HW division in a never-ending state of boredom, its not encouraging to see up coming Prospects facing such over matched opponents. This is no way to ever get a real pulse on what the prospects of the Prospect are. This kind of match making only leave more questions about the Prospect's potential against the likes of real contenders.

In the end, all the favorites managed to get W's. Yawn. Better match making could make boxing a whole lot more attractive to the sporting public. For now, we got what we got and that's not saying a lot.

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Comments can be emailed to dshark87@hotmail.com