Thankfully we quite enjoy a brawl and we got a great one earlier tonight on ESPN's "Friday Night Fights" as Artur Szpilka (16-0, 12) stopped Mike Mollo (20-5-1, 12) for a second time.
The men first met earlier this year in a highly entertaining battle that saw Szpilka dropped twice before scoring a home-rung style KO of a bloodied Mollo. This time history repeated it's self in eery way as once again Mollo dropped the Polish fighter before being stopped in eye catching fashion.
The bout started well for Szpilka who appeared too good and too fast in the two opening rounds though in round 3, as Szpilka was on the attack, Mollo landed a bombing counter left hook that sent Szpilka down hard. Although Szpilka got to his feet he never never looked like he recovered his legs and as the bell went his completely gave way as he went down from a slip.
The bell had given Szpilka time to recover and he took the time regain some of his senses, then spent much of round 4 on his bike trying to totally recover which he eventually did just before the bell as he landed his sole telling punch of the round, a solid shot that left Mollo with a cut right eye.
Having recovered his legs and senses Szpilka began to look like himself again in round 5. With his confidence rebuilt Szpilka went looking to land his left, something that had had real success in the opening rounds. It was with the left that Szpilka took advantage of Mollo's naive defense and landed a monstrous shot that put Mollo down. Although Mollo was tough and got to his feet his senses were scrambled and he was rightfully stopped by the referee.
Unfortunately many will complain about Szpilka being dropped, again, though any fan of the sport should just enjoy the bout for what it was. A highly entertaining, if somewhat limited, action bout. The thing fans are complaining they don't get to see in the Heavyweight division any more.
Staying in the US there was a pair of bouts in Minnesota with Aaron Green (12-0, 10) stopping Stacy Frazier (15-14, 14) in the most notable of those. Green,a promising prospect simply had too much for the hard hitting but limited Fraizer who has now been stopped 11 times.
The other bout in Minnesota saw "Iron Man" Travis Fulton (21-32-1, 20) scoring a decision over Van Goodman (2-5-2, 2). Amazingly this was Fulton's first decision win in 54 contests.
The one non-US bout that we have a result for saw Argentinian Claudio Adrian Comas (2-1, 2) stopping the debuting Nahuel Gomez (0-1) in the second of a scheduled 4 rounds.