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This pre-main event fight to the featured attraction of Kendall Holt vs. Jaime Rangel saw former undisputed world light welterweight championship challenger Ben “Wonder” Tackie take on Edwin Algarin over eight rounds. Read on for all the action as it happened.
Round one: Algarin is threatened with disqualification by the referee during the introductions for firstly refusing to touch Tackie’s gloves, and then inadvertently striking referee Jorge Alonso’s hand. Algarin has success with his jab while Tackie looks for left hook counters. Tackie also looks for the right uppercut opportunities. Algarin remains on the outside and is able to land some long straight left hands from his southpaw stance. Tackie’s hands are slow but he manages to trap Algarin on the ropes and lands a solid right to the body. algarin backs off and begins fighting negatively.
Round two: Algarin lands a one-two combination. Tackie is definitely the puncher of the two and he begins to land some decent combinations. Algarin backs up even further. There is a lot of short jabbing in this round as the fighters are out of range. Algarin does not seem to have anything in his punches and Tackie looks to be doing as he pleases. Tackie is still notably slow in hand and foot from when he was last seen in his high profile fights against the likes of Kostya Tszyu and Ricky Hatton.
Round three: Tackie turns up the heat and goes after Algarin, landing a series of solid right hands. Tackie lands another good right hand after some good lateral movement; Tackie looks like he has really taken some boxing lessons to heart from new trainer John David Jackson. Algarin hangs in but is not doing anything to impose himself in the fight. It is looking as if Algarin should not be in there as he looks petrified and backing up from Tackie. Tackie lands a lot of punches but to his credit, Algarin takes all that comes his way.
Round four: Algarin lands a good one-two combination while Tackie sneaks in a right uppercut. Tackie goes well to the body and Algarin is persuaded to stay further outside. Algarin is moved around whenever Tackie lands a decent punch. Suddenly, Algarin begins to land some good left hands and they seem to build his confidence as Tackie tries to fire back ineffectively.
Round five: Algarin is taking more chances now and looks strong behind his right jab and straight left hand. Tackie is trying rougher tactics now. Tackie is definitely trying to counterpunch much more than in previous fights. Algarin has a few successes that back Tackie up occasionally but the round closes with a lot of innaccurate punches from both sides.
Round six: Tackie goes to the body again. Algarin is stepping in more and Tackie gets a warning for low punching. Algarin lands a good left hand. Tackie looks markedly different than in his past performances, he is no longer plodding and taking a lot of shots, but is up on his toes, boxing, moving and looking to land good counter shots.
Round seven: The round opens with a real tear-up as Tackie rips in some good left hands. Tackie gets in some right hands as he decides to stand more in front of Algarin and get some hard shots off. Algarin comes back in with some decent straight left hands. Tackie gets in a right hand to set off a trade in which Algarin seems to get the bette rof the action.
Round eight: Tackie goes for it and Algarin responds well with a left hand. Another good left by Algarin spices the action up. More lefts from Algarin press Tackie back but Algarin is very negative towards the end of the round, running throughout the last minute to see his way to the bell.
And the final scores are: 77-75, 77-75 and 79-73 for the winner, Ben “Wonder” Tackie!
Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk
