Once again, boxing lives up to its reputation as the so-called Theater of the Unexpected.
It looked like welterweight Bryant Perrella was well on his way to a relatively breezy 10-round decision on the Caleb Plant-Vincent Feigenbutz card at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. But with 20-odd seconds left in the final round, Abel Ramos, a virtual punching bag for most of the fight, landed a booming uppercut that decked Perrella. Perrella went down again from a right hand. In a pivotal sequence, referee Jack Reiss asked Perrella to walk to his left, saw that he stumbled, and decided to wave off the bout. Ramos howled in joy. There was one second left in the round.
The stoppage brought to mind the controversial ending to the 1990 junior welterweight title bout between Meldrick Taylor and Julio Cesar Chavez, in which Taylor had largely outboxed Chavez, before succumbing to a knockdown in the final round. With a few seconds left, referee Richard Steele made the fateful decision to stop the bout.
Both Perrella and Ramos were cognizant of this piece of boxing history.
“I saw the Julius Ceasr Chavez-Meldrick Taylor fight over and over again, but I never thought I would be in a similar fight,” Ramos said.
“That was like Meldrick Taylor and Chavez,” Perrella said.
The southpaw Perrella (17-3, 14 KOs)boxed intelligently off the backfoot, pumping his jab and mixing in left hands to the body and head. For his part, Ramos (26-3-2, 20 KOs) tried to wade in and make it a brawl on the inside, but had little luck connecting on consequential shots. Instead, it was Perrella who not only threw more punches, but he landed the harder shots as well.
In Round 4, Perrella momentarily rocked Ramos with a hard straight left. He also noticeably hurt Ramos in Round 9 with a body shot.
Perrella had a decent Round 5, but it turned out to be an anomaly. Perrella quickly got back on track, picking apart Ramos with uppercuts and hooks, while continually circling to his right.
It appeared to be Perrella’s bout to lose, until Ramos stormed back in the final twenty seconds of Round 10, scoring two knockdowns and the eventual stoppage.
The official time of stoppage was 2-59 of Round 10.
Asked if he thought Reiss was wrong to wave off the bout, Perrella took the high road, saying “I don’t know, I don’t want to take anything away from my opponent. I was rocked.”
Perrella’s trainer was less cordial, and perhaps, rightfully so.
“Why would you stop the fight with one second left?” he said.
A rematch, one figures, should be in order.
Also on the undercard, the night was set for Nashville native Austin Dulay to impress the hometown crowd, but Diego Magdaleno made sure to play spoiler. After a slow start the veteran Magdaleno took control, outworking the younger Dulay with a dedicated attack to the body en route to a 10-round unanimous decision.
Scores were 97-91, 96-92, 96-92, all in favor of Magdaleno.
Dulay (13-2, 10 KOs) came out sharp, tagging the slower Magdaleno with jabs and straight lefts. But the tide began to turn in Round 3, as Magdaleno (32-3, 13 KOs) began to settle down and land combinations, especially to the body. Some punches strayed low, one of which resulted in a point deduction in Round 7. But it was Magdaleno’s round anyway, as he came back to drop Magdaleno, this time with a clean shot to the body.
