[kenyan_cheena]

(continuation)

As he has done in his last two bouts, McVey showed his love for his hometown Los Angeles Lakers with a robe of gold with purple and white trim along with similar trunks and purple boots.

It was quite a sight to see Tony Tucker towering seven inches taller and intensely staring down at McVey in the moments before the bell, sweat bubbled across his forehead. McVey took it all in stride, though, smiling and talking to the Michigan native, looking like a ball of contained energy ready to explode. A wave of excitement passed over the crowd as the first of what will be a month of huge fights for the HBF finally got underway.

Tucker actually had the better of round one, but not by much. He used his jab to keep McVey at bay but didn't show a lot of aggression. The Californian was sizing him up, giving him a lot of feints and coming at Tucker, who was perfectly happy to backpedal behing that stiff left. Things changed rather quickly in the second as McVey was able to get inside and score with a number of powerful shots to the body and head, proving that his strength has improved in the time since his January debut. His head movement was frustrating Tucker, leading to him missing with many of the defensive jabs he offered.

The third was very much like the opener, although in this case McVey had more success. It looked quite apparent that Tucker's gameplan wasn't working particularly well, as McVey kept coming at him, his impressive ability to slip inside and outside of Tucker's shots bringing appreciative applause from the audience. McVey returned to his corner with a confident grin, but it would be temporarily removed when he found himself down on one knee midway through the fourth round, a stinging Tucker bodyshot putting him there. In a comical scene, McVey showed a fake pained expression, rubbing his side before looking at Tucker, smiling, and pushing himself to his feet at the count of eight. Tucker should have been all over him but failed to follow up, going back into his shell behind that left jab.

The Michigan native's opportunity had well and truly vanished when, during the fifth round, McVey illustrated who was in control in emphatic style. According to punch stats, he landed 38 of the 74 punches he threw in the round, with Tucker failing to land a single shot of his own. The crowd was on their feet as McVey ripped into his tiring opponent, lefts and rights jolting the bigger man, colliding violently with his ribcage and sending sweat flying as if coming from a slingshot. The "USC!" chant started up again in force and as McVey returned to his corner at the end of the round, he pumped his fist and implored the crowd to make it louder, a spring in his step.

Tucker showed more aggression in the sixth than in any other round of the fight, but McVey was just as willing and his resolute frame of mind drove him to a superior effort. The crowd came to their feet in appreciation as the final seconds ticked away, clearly more in admiration for McVey's impressive showing than Tucker's cautious one. Even so, the scorecards indicated that the fight was level on two of them going into the final round. If Tucker had been able to dig deeper in even one of the earlier rounds or in the last round, he might have been able to steal a victory.

The punch counts seemed to indicate a dominant McVey win, although much of the discrepancy came about because of the Californian's efforts in rounds two and five:

McVey 135/312 (43.3%)
Tucker 77/290 (26.6%)

At first engulfed by his entourage, McVey was eventually interviewed after the verdict.

"I feel like he wasn't aggressive enough," he said, wiping his face with a towel. "His strategy really relied heavily on the jab and once I solved that he didn't have anything to fall back on. That surprised me a lot. It turned out just like I said, though. He couldn't handle my aggression or my workrate."

ESPN's Bill Farris mentioned the the scorecards and how close McVey actually was to a defeat.

"Well, that can happen when you throw a knockdown into the mix," he said. "He caught me with a good bodyshot, took my breath away for a few seconds. But even after that, he couldn't consolidate. Couldn't put me back on my heels."

Farris asked what McVey's attitude would be for his series seven bout against Johnny Arthur, now that he'd secured a stage two birth.

"Won't be any different at all," McVey answered. "The result might not matter as far as whether I progress or not, but that don't mean I ain't gonna give 100%. I'm proud that I've made it to 6-0 and I intend to get to 7-0."

Soon after, McVey and the rest of "USC" had departed the ring, carried back to the dressing room by that same chant resounding through the Mandalay Bay arena...

***

In the evening's Co-Feature, Arizona's Zora Folley kept his chances of progressing to the second stage of the tournament alive with a 2nd round TKO of South Africa's Johnny Arthur. To the disappointment of the audience, the fight ended abruptly just nineteen seconds into the round after Folley caught his opponent with a booming right hand that staggered Arthur and opened a sickening, deep cut below his left eye. It didn't take long for both referee Dick Young and the ringside doctor to wave off the contest, awarding a TKO victory to Folley.

Having been himself TKO'd in round two by Sam McVey in his last bout, Folley was glad to see the tables turned but he tempered his celebrations somewhat, aware of his distraught South African opponent on the other side of the ring.

"It's good to win again," said Folley, whose last victory came against Lem Franklin back on the 11th of February. "But I feel for Johnny. This was a huge fight for both of us and it has to be tough to lose it like this."

Round one had been an even affair with both men showing a willingness to stand and trade shots, much to the audience's delight. It made the sudden ending all the more disappointing.

Even though Arthur and Folley both share the same 3-1-2 record, Folley is now in the box seat due to this win and the fact that he fights Tony Tucker in series seven. A look at the group standings shows that the only way Arthur can progress to stage two is if the Tucker/Folley bout ends in a draw and the South African then defeats top seed Sam McVey when he fights him in the main event that will follow. It goes without saying that the odds of that happening are very long...

1st: Sam McVey 6-0-0(1)
2nd: Tony Tucker 4-2-0(1)

3rd: Zora Folley 3-1-2(1)
4th: Johnny Arthur 3-1-2

(Coming up: The Mandalay Bay undercard)