The Cyber Boxing Zone Newswire |
| "Rain City Rumble" AKA "The Gender War": Katherine Dunn |
Saturday, October 9, 1999 The gimmick worked. A first-ever sanctioned boxing match between a woman and a man was the drawing card for a packed and roaring house and a battalion of reporters and TV cameras from Tokyo to Rome, London to New York to South America. The undercard was a surprising set of four and six round clashes between inexperienced and unknown fighters so well-matched and energized by the spillover limelight that the fights were hot and intriguing. But matchmaker Bob Jarvis was aiming for attention to his homegrown lightweight prospect Martin O'Malley. While the media madness focused on the Margaret MacGregor and her hapless opponent Loi Chow, O'Malley's main event provided the boxing purists intrigue for the night. Writer and fight scholar Lucius Shepard had these comments on Seattle's undefeated Martin O'Malley: "I hadn't seen O'Malley since his second fight, and it seems to me that he's developed an extremely interesting ring presence and has more potential than I once thought. There's something almost cobralike about his aggression--it's in the bowed shape of his back and shoulders; in the weirdly delicate balance he manages, kind of floating forward and back with his front foot; in the way he maximizes his reach, especially with the right--the length of that punch came as a great surprise to Tovar. With his calmness and his heavy hands, I get the feeling that he might just be that rare fighter who'll be able to handle speed, to neutralize it with the peculiar combination of his gifts, with his solidity. Both Erik Morales and Salvador Sanchez have/had this quality, though their styles (particularly Sanchez's) are different from O'Malley's. We might see something special from him." In a ten round lightweight main event, undefeated Martin O'Malley (135 lbs) of Edmonds, WA stopped Tito Tovar (135 lbs) of Denver at 1:16 of the fourth round. O'Malley moved to 11-0, 10 KO's with calmly implacable stalking, slick and economical defensive moves and a deadly body attack. The gamely determined Tovar kept coming back despite hitting the deck three times. Tovar went down in the first from a ballistic O'Malley left to the liver, in the third round from a series of head shots, and in the fourth after a barrage of rights to the head set him up for a left to the body. Though Tovar managed to get up again, the ref called it enough. TKO win for O'Malley. Tovar drops to 18-17-2. In the much hallooed Male vs Female four round match, Margaret MacGregor (127 3/4 lbs) of Bremerton, WA battered Loi Chow (123 lbs) of Vancouver, B.C. and took every round to win a unanimous decision. Three judges all scored it 40-36 for Macgregor. A four round women's middleweight bout was a re-match for the 1999 U.S. National Amateur champ, Dakota Stone (152 3/4 lbs) of Whidbey Island, WA who made her pro debut against Anne Wolfe (155 lbs) of Austin, Texas who defeated Stone at the '98 National Amateur Tournament. Wolfe repeated her win, decking the evasive Stone with a javelin right to the jaw in the second round, and dominating all four rounds of action. The judges called it 39-35, 39-35, and 40-34, all for Wolfe. A dynamic bantamweight six rounder saw Robert "Big Bob" Guillen (116 lbs) of Phoenix, AZ using steady boxing fundamentals to outpoint bomb-throwing Leon Rivera (116 1/4 lbs) of Portland, OR. Scores were 58-53, 59-55, 58-55, all for Guillen. A light heavy six round re-match tangled Jeff Simmons (173 3/4 lbs) of Portland, OR with Rodney Moore (173 1/4 lbs) of Denver, CO. Simmons was busier while Moore countered sloppily and froze occasionally. The judges saw it 58-56, 59-54, 60-54, all for Simmons. Trainer Jesse Reed Senior worked the corner for his son, Jesse Reed Jr (194 1/4 lbs) of Costa Mesa, CA. Reed made short work of Rick "Cookie" Jarvis (184 lbs) of Aloha, OR in a scheduled four rounder. In a living demonstration of cookie crumbling, Jarvis hit the deck three times before the ref called it off at 2:30 of the first round. TKO win for Reed Jr. The hectic four round opener ended in a draw between Saul Hernandez (135 lbs) of Gresham, OR and Jaime Morales (137 1/2 lbs) of Waco, TX. |
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