VERA BEATS LEE IN SEVEN
By George Kimball @ ringside

UNCASVILLE, Conn. --- 

Brian Vera TKO7 Andy Lee... When referee Tony Chiarantano jumped between the fighters to take Andy Lee into protective custody in the seventh round, the stunned patrons at the Mohegan Sun Arena erupted in a chorus of boos. This reflection of displeasure was almost immediately supplanted by another plaintive chant of “Bullshit! Bullshit!” To be sure, Lee had taken a fair hammering from Brian Vera in the two minutes and seventeen seconds that had elapsed in the seventh round at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, but at the same time Lee was handily ahead on all thee scorecards – by margins of 5, 3, and 3 points – when Chiarantano intervened to award the fight to Vera, handing Lee his first career loss.

A proposed date on the undercard of Kelly Pavlik’s June 7th defense had probably already evaporated with the cut Vera had opened above Lee’s right eye in the fourth round, and manager/ trainer Emanuel Steward’s optimisitic prediction of a world title for the 23 year-old Irishman went up in smoke as well the moment Chiarantanto stopped the fight.

Vera had followed an action-packed sixth by catching Lee napping early in the seventh, and had pounded the Irishman from pillar to post with a succession of big right hands in what proved to be the pivotal stanza. Vera was so overhelming for much of the round that it would have been difficult to fault the referee had he stopped it, say, 20 seconds earlier. As it was, Lee had just responded, landing a crisp right-left combination of his own. When Vera landed one more left, the referee stopped the fight.

Lee had floored Vera with a left in the first round, and appeared to be in control for most of the six completed rounds, although there wasn’t one of them that Vera didn’t remind Lee he was in for a fight. Vera, who had been warned both for holding and hitting and hitting off the break, continued to battle back, even when Lee seemed to be doing most of the damage.

In contrast to his earlier bouts, when he has evinced the trappings of a thinking man’s fighter, Lee seemed content to play Vera’s game and turn it into a brawl. And in the end he paid for it.

“He was having too much fun fighting instead of boxing,” said Steward, just before Lee was taken by ambulance to Norwich’s Backus Hospital for stitches to the cut.

Asked if he though the stoppage had been precipitate, Vera confirmed that Lee had just answered with a combination of his own, but said “It was going to happen sooner or later. He’d taken a lot of punches in that round and he would have taken even more.”

Vera said that Lee had “hurt me a couple of times, although I was more off balance for that first knockdown. He shook me a couple of times after that, but never so bad that I was in danger of being down, let alone out.”

Vera, who improved to 16-1 with the upset victory (Lee fell to 15-1) said afterward that “This fight is going to open a lot of doors for me. What they had planned for him, maybe they’ll look to me for now.”

Actually, it appears that Vera’s next opponent could be… Andy Lee. After the bout, promoter Lisa Elovich announced that both Vera’s handlers and Steward had agreed to a July 25 rematch on a Pugnacious Promotions card at Saratoga Springs. Vera's only loss came against Jaidon Codrington on The Contender.

Aaron Pryor W8 Alphonso Williams... Aaron Pryor Jr. is the son and namesake of the legendary junior welterweight champion of a quarter century ago, but in his super-middleweight bout against Alphonso Williams he also appeared to share a bond with Lazarus.  Built more like a shot-blocking basketball player than a boxer, Pryor was able to dominate most of the evening with his jab and his superior wingspan, but early in the seventh round a Williams bullrush caught him flat-footed, and the opponent spent the ensuing three minutes belting him all around the ring.

Pryor put on an uncanny display of balance, clinching ability and sheer survival instinct, and somehow got out of the round without going down. Given a minute’s respite, he returned to take the final round on all three cards to post his ninth victory without a loss. (Williams fell to 10-4.) Judge Frank Lombardi’s 79-73 scorecard seemed downright ludicrous, particularly since the other two judges (and Boxingtalk) gave Williams a 10-8 advantage in the seventh. Glenn Feldman had it 77-74 and John McKaie 76-75. (Our scorecard concurred with McKaie’s.)

On an evening that had already seen UConn ousted from the NCAA tournament in a major upset, a trio of Connecticut boxers managed to prevail on their home turf, though a couple of them came perilously h to going into overtime themselves.

Matt Remillard W4 Jesus Perez... Matt Remillard, the 21 year-old lightweight from Manchester, floored Colombian veteran Jesus Perez with a short left in the first round, and then opened up a gash above Perez’ left eye in the second on the way to a unanimous decision that kept his record perfect at 13-0. Perez fell to 25-19-3, but even that is somewhat misleading in that he was 22-0-2 back in his native Colombia, where hasn’t fought since 2002, making him 3-18-1 – including a loss in a 2001 bantamweight title challenge to Tim Austin – in the US and Puerto Rico. Judges Lombardi, Dr. Clark Sammartino, and Boxingtalk all had it 40-35 for Remillard, while Feldman scored it 39-36.

Brian Macy W4 Rafael Jastrzebski ... Winless in all six of his previous outings, Rafael Jastrzebski didn’t win this one either, but the New Jersey fighter did gamely battle back to win the last two rounds (on the Boxingtalk scorcard, as well as those of two ringside judges) of his 4-rounder against Ledyard light heavy Brian Macy. A second-round knockdown spelled the difference between a draw and a loss, however, and Macy improved to 3-0 as Jastrzebski fell to 0-6-1. Both Peter Hary and Lombardi had it 38-37, while McKaie favored Macy by 39-36.

Francisco Palacios W4 Veneash Rungea... Stamford junior welter Francisco Palacios (2-3-4) won a majority decision Veneash Rungea (2-11-2) of London, England. Rungea, a native of Mauritius, had battled a Palacios to a draw when the pair met two years ago at Vernon Downs, Sammartino had this one level, too, but was overruled by colleagues Feldman and Hary, who both scored it 39-37 for Palacios.

Guillermo Sanchez W6 Harvey Murray.... The walk-out bout saw Buffalo featherweight Guillermo Sanchez improve to 4-0 with a unanimous decision over Rochester’s Harvey Murray. Murray, the brother of former world champion Charles (The Natural) Murray, incurred his first defeat in dropping to 2-1-2.

MOHEGAN SUN ARENA
UNCASVILLE, CONN.
MARCH 21, 2008-03-16


MIDDLEWEIGHTS: Brian Vera, 162, Austin, Tex. TKO’d Andy Lee, 158 3/4, Limerick, Ireland (7)

Aaron Pryor, Jr. 162 1/4, Cincinnati, Ohio dec. Alphonso Williams, 162 1/2, Pittsburgh, Pa. (8)

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHTS: Brian Macy, 170 1/4, Ledyard, Conn. dec, Rafael Jastrzebski, 167, Toms River, NJ (4)

JUNIOR WELTERWEIGHTS: Francisco Palacios, 136 1/4, Stamford, Conn. dec. Vineash Rungea, 137, London, England (4)

LIGHTWEIGHTS: Matt Remillard, 131, Mancheter, Conn. dec. Jesus Salvador Perez, 131, Cordoba, Colombia (4)

FEATHERWEIGHTS: Guillermo Sanchez, 127, Buffalo, NY dec. Harvey Murray, 123 3/4, Rochester, NY (6).