There’s Randall Bailey getting his “How is it fair for any one man to have such power?” on Friday. The victim, in 90 seconds of the 1st round, was Jackson Bonsu, in a welterweight title eliminator. After Bailey went the distance with Germaine Sanders in his move up from junior welterweight, it wasn’t clear he’d carry that almost comical power of his with him. Bonsu probably would tell you he did. Neither Bailey nor Bonsu had done anything at 147 to warrant getting a title shot, but the IBF just keeps passing around its belt to borderline top-20 welters, and now Bailey’s in line for a bout with the current strapholder, Jan Zaveck. If you saw Zaveck KO Isaac Hlatshwayo, though, you know Bailey-Zaveck could be a fun fight. To answer the question above about fairness, though, it goes like this: Bailey, for all his power, can be outboxed, and he’s never beaten a really top-notch foe, plus he loses to some lesser guys sometimes, too. I think Zaveck’s lesser, so I suppose we’ll see — although Bailey’s promoter, DiBella Entertainment, hinted that it might like to get Bailey’s name and power into the ring with a higher-profile welter than Zaveck.
On Friday Night Fights in another title eliminator, junior middleweight Sechew Powell avenged his loss to Deandre Latimore with a close, hard-fought 12-round decision. Two judges had it for Powell, 117-111 and 116-112, and one had it a draw. I had it 115-113, Powell. Early, Latimore was aggressive and Powell was cautious. I gave the first three to Latimore, and he was bulling Powell to the ropes and refusing to allow Powell to tie him up close. All the first five rounds or so were pretty close, though, because Powell was landing his jab accurately and counterpunching, especially with his left hook. The 6th is when it changed; Powell landed a jab that opened a cut on Latimore’s right eye, and not much longer after that Latimore’s eye began to swell badly. Latimore fought discouraged after that. He already is a bit inaccurate — his occasionally wild power shots and tendency not to jab his way in are a bad combo — but with one eye, it got worse, and Powell’s a pretty good defensive fighter to boot. Latimore tired and suddenly seemed to welcome Powell’s clinches. It wasn’t until the 11th that Latimore began to reverse the tide with a pair of lefts that hurt Powell at two separate points. Latimore won the 12th with a surge of energy, but by then, it was too late. Powell’s overall composure, accurate counters and good defense carried the day. Now he’s in line for a shot at the winner of Cory Spinks-Cornelius Bundrage, with Spinks the current titleholder.
