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Heavyweights Guinn and Ahunanya show their stuff by crawling to a draw 

Ringside report and photos by Chris Cozzone

Last night at Caesar’s Palace, Main Events served up an appetizer card for tonight’s big pay-per-view card.

Unfortunately, the only ones who showed up hungry were the fans—at least in the main event.

Fringe heavyweight fighters Dominick Guinn (25-2-1, 18 KOs) and Friday Ahunanya (20-3-2, 11 KOs) were hoping to prove themselves worthy of contendership status, but only managed to punish the crowd, rarely, each other, over the course of ten rounds to a well-deserved, maybe undeserved, majority draw.

It was going nowhere from the get-go. In Round One, Ahunanya edged the former Olympian with his jab (which he forgot about for the remaining nine rounds), while Guinn was content to land a few grazing right hands.

Ahunanya did what he does best in the second round; come forward as if to do something, then wind up doing nothing to very little, while Guinn did marginally better, a handful of one-two’s, which swung the edge win Guinn’s way.

Guinn continued to do just enough to win in the Third, while Ahunanya did just enough to lose. Plodding his way forward, Ahunanya got close enough to Guinn to clinch, which was fine with Guinn—all he had to do was shoot his right once in a while to appear the better man.

In Round Four, Ahunanya came out aggressive, to the delight of a starting-to-boo crowd. Landing enough loopy overhands an occasional lead left hook earned Ahunanya the round, while Guinn lapsed into a walkaround defense routine.

Round Five was a better action round. While Guinn landed a solid right early on—his best punch yet—Ahunanya’s increased aggression meant more waiting for Guinn. Round to Ahunanya.

While the sixth round was another close one—I liked Ahunanya’s aggression, even if it was ineffective, over Guinn’s waiting around—it was obvious that this fight was up in the air for anyone who wanted it. Only problem is, it didn’t seem as if either fighter wanted it.

Guinn came back in the 7th with enough jabs (finally) and occasional rights to beat out Friday’s heavy plodding and winging left hook leads, almost all of which landed on Guinn’s shoulders or arms.

Round Eight was the worst one yet, punctuated only by the outbreaks of boos in the crowd; a 10-10 lack of action round if there ever was one.

Ditto Round Nine. Yet another 10/10, uneventful, uninspired round. Even the demands of trainer Ronnie Shields could not penetrate Guinn’s indifference:

“Just throw something!” he shouted. “This fight is a toss-up! You got to throw punches! You can’t win this fight walking around this guy all night!”

In the tenth and final round, Guinn threw enough rights to edge the round, but, for the most part, it was a typical round, as indicated by the ten second clinch both fighters initiated in the final ten seconds.

Two of three judges had it right, scoring it 95-95, making it a majority draw, while the third somehow saw Guinn winning 97-93.

Fightnews had it 96-96.

As the fighters left the ring, a joker in the audience shouted, “Rematch!”

Speed kills: Litzau too fast for Martinez

In the co-main event, an eight-round featherweight bout, Jason Litzau (14-0, 14 KOs) of St. Paul, Minn. kept his perfect record by stopping a game Idelfonso Martinez (13-5, 10 KOs) of Laredo, Texas in the fifth round.

Speed wins—that was apparent from the opening round. While Martinez applied steady-but-plodding pressure, Litzau used his superior quickness to snap at Martinez, one punch at a time; lead hooks and straight rights.

Litzau went from better to dominant in the second round. Avoiding Martinez’s swing-and-he-misses attempts to get back in the game, Litzau, at the insistence of his corner, started using two- and three-punch combinations, for which Martinez had no answer.

Still trying to pressure, pressure, pressure, Martinez proved all-too-predictable for Litzau, who pot-shotted the Texan at will, Martinez walked into every right hand Litzau threw. The Fourth was a repeat, but for an occasional left hook from Martinez that landed square, despite doing little, or no, damage.

After several head-snapping, head-twisting blows from Litzau, referee Tony Gibson stepped in and saved Martinez from further punishment at :54.

Undercard:

In the opening bout, Kansas City prospect Chad Aquino (4-0, 2 KOs) had little trouble dispatching local opponent Terrance Jett (0-3). Jett had moderate success in the first half of the First, but the southpaw Aquino was merely taking his time—by the second minute, he was timing hooks to the body and short straight lefts. At 2:56, a solid left floored Jett for the count and ref Tony Weeks wasted no time calling it quits.

In a four-round lightweight bout, Daniel Cervantes (6-0) of Ventura, Calif. easily outhustled Alejandro Ramirez (8-8-1, 5 KOs) of Tijuana, Mexico for a unanimous decision.

Cervantes was, simply, the superior boxer, throwing more combinations and controlling the ring for most of four rounds. The only exception was Round Four, when Ramirez came out like he actually wanted to win—still not enough to win a round, though, for Cervantes waited for the right moments, then unleashed blistering combinations that drove Ramirez back.

At the end of four rounds, all three judges had it for Cervantes 40-36.

In the walkout bout of the evening, a scheduled six-round jr. middleweight bout, Archak “Shark Attack” Termeliksetian (11-1, 9 KOs) blew out an overmatched William Evans (8-6, 6 KOs) of Auburn, Kansas. After the first solid right landed, Evans hit the canvas hard enough for the ref to pull the plug at just :53.

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