The boxing card at Cene Park got off to a thunderous start.  Aaron Dufour squared off against Derrick Evans in a scheduled four-round 175-pound match.  Unfortunately, Evans only needed one round to make quick work of Dufour.

The fighters exchanged for the first minute of the first round and then Evans caught Dufour knocking him down.  Dufour got back up fairly quick.  As soon as the ref said ‘fight’, Dufour was floored with a hook and stayed down for six seconds of the ref’s count.  At that point, Dufour’s eyes were woozy and the ref really should have considered stopping this one.  He let it go.  (See above picture).

At the 1:37 mark of the first round, Dufour was knocked through the ropes and stayed down for a minute or so.

“I trained hard and didn’t come here to lose”, remarked Evans after the impressive win that hoists his record to 2-0 with both wins coming by knockout.  Dufour dropped to 2-2 with the loss.

The second fight of the evening was a Heavyweight contest pitting Jason Massie (left) of Cleveland against Mujaheed Moore (right) of Shaker Heights, geographic proximity.  Massie came in with a perfect 6-0 record and Moore came in with a losing record but a lot of heart.

Massie snuck away with a unanimous decision to run his record to 7-0.  With the loss, Moore fell to 4-6.  Massie did just enough to win a hard-fought contest where both heavyweights were gasping in the third round, typical of the weight class.

The first round was Moore’s best as he caught Massie with some big rights.  From the second round on, both fighters looked tire but Massie stayed busier.  Most of the third and fourth rounds were spent with the boxers heads on their opponents shoulder and punches thrown blindly.  Moore did bleed a little, but neither fighter was really hurt the entire fight.

After a one hour and fifteen minute delay, boxing resumed. Nicolai ‘The Mountain Man’ Firtha (above) of Akron faced off against Ross’The Boss’ Thompson.  Firtha is managed by local, Pat Nelson.

In the first round, Firtha didn’t land a punch until after the one minute mark.  Thompson landed a couple of shots to the head and one to the body.  By the end of the round, Firtha was throwing more and landing a couple, but Thompson won the round.

In the second round, there was more talking and jawing between the fighters than fighting.  Firtha opened it up a bit and hit some clean body shots when he had Thompson pinned on the ropes.  At the very end of the round, Firtha hit Thompson and sent him to the canvas.  Thompson argued it was a slip and a ten minute delay ensued with everything from protests to Bernie Profant to Thompson’s corner throwing in the towel, to the fight seemingly over, to starting again.

In the third and fourth rounds, Firtha , not Thompson, was the boss.  Firtha used about a six inch height advantage to bully Thompson around almost every clinch.  Firtha was the aggressor and Thompson was a little too choosy about when he should let his hands fly.  At this point, I had Firtha ahead three rounds to one.

The fifth and sixth rounds found Thompson resting with his back on the ropes for the majority of each round trying to counterpunch.  That did not go so well as ‘The Boss’ was having a rough day at the office.

When it went to the scorecards, Firtha was declared the winner by a unanimously lopsided decision and improved to 20-8.  Thompson fell to 27-16 with the loss.

*Photos Courtesy of Ron Stevens