It was the first major Heavyweight bout of the day that was a bit of a stinker. Whilst we had unbeaten punchers colliding in the United Kingdom, as Australian Lucas Browne (18-0, 16) traveled around the world and took on England's very own Richard Towers (14-1, 11), the bout really struggled to come alive. The bout, a Commonwealth title eliminator, was shockingly bad for 4 rounds as Towers tried to fiddle and hold his way through the rounds. Due to the long arms of Towers he was managing to keep Browne at bay though did little else.
Looking slightly frustrated Browne had began taking risks and seemed to shake up Towers at the very end of round 3 whilst also coming close in round 4. It wasn't until Browne launched his first really serious attack of the fight, which surprisingly came in round 5, however that we found out just how out of his depth Towers was. Browne came after him, forced him on to the ropes and unloaded forcing the referee to save Towers from any more punishment. Sadly the Englishman hardly landed a punch of note in a really disappointing performance.
Following the bout Browne talked about fighting any of the British Heavyweights. A bout with David Price seems the most likely, considering that Browne is now the mandatory to Price's Commonwealth title, though a more interesting contest would be against Derreck Chisora in what could potentially be a real hard battle.
Talking about hard battles that's exactly what American fans got as the big punching Magomed Abdusalamov (18-1, 18) suffered the first loss of his career. Matched against the highly regarded Cuban Mike Perez (20-0, 12) we knew somebodies "0" had to go again here, what we didn't expect however was that the bout would go the distance.
It was obvious from the off that Perez had gotten up for this bout. The Cuban had in the past been criticised for being lazy and bored in the ring. This time however he was set to impress and was willing to take a shot from the big hitting Russian to land his own. The first round alone seem to have more leather thrown by both men than we saw in the entire of the Browne/Towers bout.
Not only did we have a great start but the bout just got better and better as the guys traded round after round as they attempted to stop the other. Unfortunately whilst there was plenty of leather thrown the bout did become one sided in the middle rounds as a tired Abdulsalmov was busted up around the face suffering nasty swelling and cuts. The Russian showed no quit but was clearly on the losing side of this bout that showed how great the Heavyweight division can be when contenders face off in real 50-50 match ups. Please promoters give us more evenly matched bouts at this level!
It wasn't just Perez and Browne that were successful however as in Argentina we saw the Argentinian Heavyweight champion Matias Ariel Vidondo (17-1-1, 15) fighting Uruguayan champion Yuberty Suarez Diaz (3-1, 1). In a battle between national champions it's fair to say that Argentina clearly came out on top as Diaz retired at the start of round 2 giving the hilarious out shape Vindondo his fourth victory of the year.
Yet another unbeaten fighter suffered his first loss. Fighting in his home town of Connecticut Solomon Maye (1-1, 1) was stopped in the fourth round by Donnie Palmer (3-0-1, 3). This was a third stoppage in as many months for Palmer who is starting to look like a man to be avoided by novices.
The loss for Maye was the fourth "0" to go in a day that was certainly worth remembering in the Heavyweight division.
A man who kept his 0 was Irakli Gonashvili (5-0, 5) who kept up his 100% record with a third round stoppage of the fragile Pavel Siska (6-33-1, 4) a man who has now been stopped 29 times in 40 contests.
In a bout with no "0" involved Enobong Umohette (9-1, 8) defeated journeyman Dante Craig (20-17-1, 15) in a bout for the USA Wisconsin State Heavyweight title. Amazingly this was Craig's 15th stoppage loss and his fourth in less than 12 months, an amazingly bad record for a member of the 2000 US Olympic team.