[Romultiltus]

What a painful night out at Mohegan Sun. The card consisted of 9 amateur bouts and 3 pro bouts.

The amateur bouts pitted members of the USMC Boxing Team against guys from local boxing clubs and native american boxers. For the most part the USMC fighters were more polished, but that's not saying much. The bouts were either 3 or 4 rounds - of which a few times the boxers didn't even know. (After the 3rd round of one bout, the local kid started climbing the ropes in his corner and raised his hands in victory while the USMC kid looked over ready to congratulate him. All of a sudden, the bell rings to start Round 4!!!)

Almost all of the amateur bouts went the distance (from what I can remember). The amateur refs (1 female ref in particular) were horrible. They constantly stopped the action to issue warnings and point deductions - which turned out to be a forshadowing of the pro's to follow.

One item of note, LHW Champion Chad Dawson's older brother (26) was on the card representing Ring One of New Haven, CT. There was a small article in the New Haven Register about him and apparently fighting for the 1st time in 10 years. He won, but clearly doesn't have anything near the talent of his younger brother.

There were quite a few presentations w/ many young soldiers and marines in full dress uniform on display and a couple of patriotic songs ("God Bless America" & "Proud To Be An American"). This was a nice tribute to our guys overseas and well received by the crowd. One particularly nice tribute was to 2 native American WWII vets that were actually the famous "Codetalkers" from the Pacific Theater.

Before the pro's, a bunch of local boxers not on the card got in the ring and waved to collect an appearance fee (Jason "Deep Six" Estrada, New Haven's Elvin Ayala and a few others)

On to the pros...

The first was a 4-rounder between Providence RI native HW Philip "Killa" Miller sporting a 1-0-0 (1) record against a "veteran making an appearance in his 3rd professional bout" named Jamaine Warner. 2 minutes 50 seconds and 3 knockdowns after the opening bell it was over. Killa had entered the ring wearing a US Coast Guard coveralls outfit, but donned a fancy robe w/ hood after winning. Now I don't mind seeing good young fighters w/ a big local following, but is it really necessary for a guy w/ 1 professional fight to have a nickname like "Killa" already as well as his own obnoxiously loud entrance music?

Bout 2: Hebron, CT native son HW Tony Grano 11-0-1 (10) was back only 1 month after his last bout on a weekend trip to Kentucky. His foe was durable opponent David Polk 10-6-1 (0). He was definitely a step up for Grano and had been in the ring w/ Timor Ibragimov (L-U10), Brian Minto (L-U8) and Chazz Witherspoon (L-U6) but w/ no KO wins to his credit was still a pretty safe fight for Grano. Polk turned out to be a defense-first type fighter and Grano chose not to use his jab to push the action. Several times each round there were long stretches where both fighters just stood in the center of the ring and posed at one another. Grano was a bit busier but didn't really land anything except for a big flurry in the 5th but couldn't finish. Polk did land quite a few overhand rights to the side of Grano's head, but his non-existant power was clearly evident. Every time Grano threw a punch, the entire town of Hebron in attendance roared. This fight could have gone 100 rounds and neither guy would have hurt the other. In the end, Grano won a very generous hometown split-decison. Hebonites cheered and did not seem to notice that Polk had 2 points deducted during the fight for holding (Hmmmmmm!!!!)

[NOTE: Before the main event, at least half of the crowd (a.k.a. the townspeople of Hebron CT) left. That left about only a third of the lower seating area still occupied.]

Main Event (vacant IBO Super Bantamweight Title): Hartford CT native Mike "Machine Gun" Oliver 20-0-0 (7) vs. Al "The Quiet Storm" Seeger 27-2-0 (21). Seeger entered the ring first behind his semi-annoying entrance music, followed by Mike-Mike with his very loud personal "Mike the Machine Gun" theme song. At first I was worried about Mike-Mike fighting a guy w/ such a high KO rate, but Seeger had also been on the shelf for 13 months. After the first round Oliver's right eye was swollen (he claims by a Seeger thumb) but Seeger never did target his jab there. Both guys threw a lot of punches, but there seemed to be at least 1 clinch for each punch thrown. Oliver's best punch of the fight was a low blow in the 5th. After a brief Academy Award performance for "Best Exaggeration Of Pain From a Shot to the Balls" Catagory, Seeger was back to throwing punches and clinching. Seeger was deducted 1 point for excessive holding (Hmmm!) As the rounds went on, more and more of the remaining crowd left. By the end of the fight, I'm guessing that there were no more than 250 people in the arena - Some Title Fight. At least I didn't have to fight any crowds leaving my seat.

Mike-Mike wins (U12). I'd be shocked if Oliver ever headlines a card here again. The way the crowd just disappeared was really embarrassing. Even the 3 Ring Card Girls from Groton, CT's Gold Club couldn't keep anyone in their seats.