Brick City Boxing

The Brick City's Prudential Arena

By: Steve Fradkin
www.theboxingtruth.com
The Undercard:
The best was Piotr Wilczewski vs. Curtis Stevens, super middleweights. It was Wilczewski's show. They played his promo on the bigscreen and he came out to a roar. Stevens was the opponent, though you may remember him from Showbox: Andre Dirrell won a UD running from him and Showtime almost dropped Dirrell when he told Jim Gray that fans don't matter: Let them boo, I'm here to win. Stevens won a moral victory trying to fight and Dirrell subsequently redeemed himself with a string of KO's.

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In this one, Stevens couldn’t have dreamed a better first round. The only chance the 5'8" Stevens has is inside. With a 21-0 record, and only 7 KO's, Wilczewski's plan was to stick and move. But Steven's cut off the ring, waded in, dropped him, and then clobbered him on the ropes for the final 20 seconds. Referee Earl Morton could have stopped it then. Perhaps the crowd gave him pause. He even seemed reluctant to intercede in 3 when Wilczewski, still wobbly from a second knockdown, was again getting pounded on the ropes. But Morton did jump in, the fans boo'd, Wilczewski protested, but it was a good stoppage.

A cruiserweight scrap also almost flipped the script. Poland's Mateusz Masternak (13-0) 8 KO's, said in his promo that this fight will finally get him ranked. His opponent, Naser Aly, (4-3) 2 KO's, from Brooklyn, was the sacrificial lamb. He looked extra-flabby at the staredown next to the ripped and glaring Masternak. But Aly has skills and came to fight. He stood firm in the early exchanges and set up Maternak with fierce counter rights, giving as good as he got. Then Aly gassed and fell in 5, just as his corner tossed the towel. If he was in shape, he might have won. As it is, he exposed Masternak as another one-dimensional plodder.

Another match featured an Israeli heavyweight, Ran Nakash, (12-0) 8 KO's, who looked like a prison inmate from Bugs Bunny: short, thick, bald, swarthy, with a heavy whiskered face. He broke down his scared opponent, William Bailey, in 4 rounds of heavy body punching.

All told, a good night of boxing in an old boxing town. The local and ethnic angle has a long, glorious history in boxing. Main Events is doing it right. Better match-ups would mean TV exposure, but even without it, they created a good night for the fans.