HBO Boxing After Dark: Quartey vs. Forrest

Plus a Preview of Kassim Ouma – Sechew Powell!

Tonight HBO will showcase two fights that represent each end of the boxing spectrum. In the main event, we have two former champs on the comeback trail and on the undercard, two of boxing’s rising stars look to cement their place at the top. But before I get started on the card itself, lets take a minute and discuss the Boxing After Dark program as a whole.

A lot has been said recently since the premier of the new and revamped Boxing After Dark show since it was first telecast in April, most of which happen to be negitive. The fights look good on paper, but when it comes to reality, the contests haven’t been delivering. For instance, instead of what looked to be a good boxer vs. puncher match up in April between Acelino Freitas and Zahir Raheem, turned into a dull wrestling match.

On May 27, Paul Williams excited us and showed that in the future he could be a force to be reckoned with in the welterweight division. But his coming out party was spoiled on the lackluster affair of Gonzalez vs. Monteil. It turned out to be another case of de ja vu on the June 24th B.A.D card while Carlos Quintana made a name for himself by taking apart the much talked about prospect ,Joel Julio. And I am not even going to go into detail on the Brock-Ibragimov fight. And just when you think it could not get any worse, a series of pull outs and training camp injuries soured last week’s B.A.D card.

So, as we can see, it is not entirly HBO’s fault. They have put together some noteworthy boxing cards in the past four months. It is the fighters who just not executing. However, HBO does not get a pass for the commentary team they assembled. Fran Charles, to put it nicely, is horrible as a blow by blow commentator for the fight game.

When you happen to be calling a fight, you have to explain and talk more than he actually does. With the amount that Charles says on the air, he would be better off being the play by play man for cliff diving competitions. James Brown did a better job filling in for Jim Lampley than Charles has ever done.

Please, give Brown the blow by blow duties. And how about Lennox Lewis? You can forget he is even there, calling the fight with the amount he says. It took him two rounds into the first fight last week to even say anything at all. And I never though I could hear one man say “absolutely” or “definitely” as much as the champ does during a two hour program.

My solution would be put Joe Mesi on the team and get rid of Lewis. Maybe he could be the unofficial judge and give Harold Letterman a break. As far as Max Kellerman goes, I enjoyed him when he was on ESPN and still do in fact, but recently on B.A.D, he just been average. Kellerman is just not living up to his ability. I know Max is better than that and hopefully he could elevate his skills in the following shows.

But now to the fights at hand. In the first bout of the evening, we are matched with the two young guns. Kassim Ouma, 24-2-1 (12), from Uganda and Sechew Powell, 20-0 (12) who is fighting out of Brooklyn, NY. Ouma, a former IBF Champion, is the more talented and the more experienced fighter of the two. While Powell has followed the usual DiBella regiment for a prospect; which is fight less than steller opposition and after around 20 wins, get thrown to the lions den for a payday.

As it stands so far, Powell biggest wins have came against Archak Ter Meliksetian (who has lost two straight fights since), the last picked fighter from the second season of “The Contender”, Cornelius “K-9” Bundrage and prospect gatekeeper Patrick Thompson. Ouma, on the other hand as fought much better opponents.

The problem with Ouma is that he can be hit, as we have seen in his IBF Title fight with Roman Karmazin and in his last outing, Ouma was dropped by Marco Antonio Rubio. Powell can also bang, but I expect Ouma to possibly struggle in the early rounds and then begin to outbox Powell for a decision win.

The main event of the night is being billed as “Now or Never”, the reason for this is seems to be because both men are in their mid-thirties and both are trying to continued their boxing comebacks with a win. Each fighter had their own layoffs for different reasons. Vernon Forrest’s, 37-2 (28), reasons for his layoff were mainly due to injury. Forrest, the former welterweight champ who holds two victories over Shane Mosley, did not fight for two years since his back to back losses to Ricardo Mayorga. Since his comeback, Forrest has fought two preverbial punchingbags for opponents and now comes to his crossroad fight with Ike Quartey, 37-2-1 (31).

Quartey’s road back to the boxing spotlight was different road traveled than Forrest. In Quartey’s native country of Ghana, professional sport athletes are worshipped religiously. A victory for a Ghana athlete is a victory for all Ghanians across the country. A loss means the athlete is shamed. And after two disputed losses to Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas, Quartey felt he had let down his people and no longer had the heart to continue to fight.

It was only until recently when Quartey was watching the Hopkins-De La Hoya fight and saw his former foe get knocked out that Ike realized he could continue to fight and ultimately get the rematch that he so desperately been yearning for the past half decade. The only problem is that Vernon Forrest stands in his way.

I believe the fight comes down to a couple cold hard facts. The first one being the opposition each fighter has faced during their comeback trail. The edge overwhelmingly goes to Quartey, who has fought the durable Verno Phillips and the tough Carlos Bojorquez. The next fact you have to look at is how shop worn these fighters acually are and who has the better legs under him so to speak?

You would have to score that once again for Quartey, while he might be older, he still is healthier, while Forrest recently had surgery on his shoulder. So expect Ike Quartey to come away with the win here. Again, while on paper this looks to be an exciting contest, both fighter have shown a willingness to trade in their last outings. So lets hope for our sake and HBO’s Boxing After Dark’s sake that this continues.