Ossie Duran Stops Mundy in 10th, Wins USBA Belt
In the main event held at the Robert Treat Best Western Hotel in Newark, New Jersey, Ossie Duran, a 34 year old Ghana middleweight fighting out of Paterson, New Jersey, won the USBA Northeastern Regional Middleweight title with a tenth round stoppage over Latif Mundy of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though the more experienced and aggressive Duran appeared to win every round on the scorecards, Mundy remained very competitive till late in the tenth. Mundy suddenly appeared defenseless, with Duran pummeling him with head shots on the ropes near a corner, forcing referee Lindsay Page to stop the bout at 2:29 of the tenth and final round.
Duran, now 26-8-2 (10), outclassed Mundy by using his ring experience to both throw and land more punches by volume, using a lot of overhand left and right leads to the head, as well as doing going bodywork throughout the contest. Mundy had a good defense, and landed some good counters.
Mundy’s best chance was to try to stay close to Duran and try to score on the inside, but he was unable to sustain any inside exchanges. Duran stood in front of Mundy nearly the entire contest, but Mundy, now 10-3 (4), who kept moving, lacked the skills to land blows of significance on the target. Neither fighter changed their game plan.
Duran, who had gone ten rounds or more fifteen times going into the contest, knew Mundy had never been past the eighth round, and patiently wore him down before finally getting to him near the end of the bout. Mundy still has potential, but is not yet a ten round fighter.
Duran’s win put him into the top 15 USBA ratings and qualified him for a shot at current USBA middleweight champion Osumanu Adama of Chicago, also formerly of Ghana, in a possible future bout which could be of great interest to the Ghana television and Pan African sports networks. Adama won the full USBA title with a fifth round knockout of Marcus Upshaw in Chicago this past March.
Celebrities at ringside included former world cruiserweight champions Carlos De Leon and Al ‘Ice’ Cole, Harold Lederman of HBO Sports, and ‘locked out’ New York Giants running back Danny Ware and wide receiver Mario Manningham.
Result: Ossie Duran TKO10 Latif Mundy
Time: 2:29
Preliminary Bout and Walkout Bout Results
John Lennox DQ Kareem Wilson, Heavyweights (1:40)
John Thompson TKO1 Valdez Eason, Middleweights (0:59)
Tyyab Beale SD4 Jon Bolden, Heavyweights
Derrick Webster W4 Kentrell Claiborne, Light Heavyweights
Thomas LaManna W4 Yehudy Vargas, Welterweights
Fitzgerald Johnson W4 Vadim Gurau, Middleweights
Eddie Edmonds Draw Yasin Abdul, Middleweights
Andy Mejias W6 Yasin Rashid, Light Heavyweights