SATURDAY
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George Cook W10 Charlie Weinert: The 57th-seeded Cook, who pulled the shocker of the first round with a controversial third-round stoppage of No. 8 Jack Delaney, scored another upset.
This one was not as big or as controversial as the win over Delaney, in which the referee ignored his ruling of a first-round butt as the cause of a cut over the favorite’s eye by ruling a TKO when the wound reopened and forced a stoppage.
After being out-boxed and battered through the first two rounds, Cook begins prevailing in his war of attrition in the third. Alternately clinching and punching, he wins close-but-dull rounds in the third and fourth (though a clash of heads began to cause his left eye to swell in the third) before opening up in the fifth to dominate that frame.
Weinert regains control in the sixth, peppering Cook’s bad eye with combinations and scoring with a heavy left hook to the side late in the round.
The two wrestle through a slow seventh round and early in the eighth, as Cook’s steadily swelling eye begins to affect his vision. Out of nowhere, he lands a devastating right cross that sends Weinert sprawling back and to his right.
Weinert makes it to his feet just as the word “ten” is about to pass from referee Derek Milham’s lips. With his legs gone and nearly two-and-a-half minutes left in the eighth, Weinert’s survival seems unlikely.
Cook wades in, swinging wildly. Though he lands some shots, Weinert is able to avoid enough shots to allow his head to clear and make it through the round.
The roles reverse in the ninth, with Weinert rocking Cook with an uppercut early on and then wailing away, including a right cross that nearly drops the Australian underdog, whose eye is now swollen shut.
Neither exhausted fighter does much for the first two minutes of the 10th, but another crunching uppercut by Weinert stands up and staggers the 5-foot-9 Cook, who clinches his way to the final bell.
When the cards are read, Cook again benefits from favorable judgment from the officials, winning 95-94 on all three cards, with the 10-8 round arising from the knockdown in the eighth making the difference. But, unlike the ruling against Delaney, which triggered riotous behavior among his loyal Canadian followers, this time there is no controversy.
---Luis Firpo W10 Paulino Uzcudun: For his second straight outing, The Wild Bull of the Pampas gets off the floor to win, though this time it involves more hanging on than coming back.
Firpo blasts his way through Uzcudun’s superior defense in the early going, winning the first five rounds on all three cards and the sixth on one. The Basque Woodchopper eats a lot of big shots, but his savvy and granite chin keep him out of serious trouble, except on the scorecards.
But even with a big lead and his right eye swelling, the thought of boxing or staying out of trouble never seems to occur to Firpo, who is dropped by a vicious left hook early in the eighth. Firpo makes it up at eight and weathers the rest of the round.
One huge right to the head by Firpo is enough to carry an otherwise uneventful ninth. Firpo charges across the ring in the final round, as if he were badly trailing, and he walks into a clean right cross that drops him on his face just 24 seconds into the round. He makes it up at eight and tries clinching his way to safety.
But when Uzcudun continually breaks free of his grasp and continues landing punches, Firpo fights his way off the ropes with a hook to the head and a hard jab with a hook to the head off of it. A three-punch combination nearly drops Uzcudun with the round winding down and the Spaniard misses a wild right at the bell, sending the fight to the judges.
One calls the fight a draw, but the others see it as 95-93 for Firpo, despite the two 10-8 rounds, giving the 23rd seed a majority decision and upset over the 10th-ranked Uzcudun.
---Jack Johnson TKO9 Johnny Risko: The 40-something Johnson turns back the clock by at least a decade, using near-flawless defense and superior hand speed to thoroughly outclass The Cleveland Rubber Man.
Out-landing Risko by better than a 2-1 ratio, Johnson controls the first six rounds, opening a nasty cut over the favorite’s right eye with a sharp left jab, then continuing to probe the injury at every opportunity.
An increasingly desperate Risko has his best round in the seventh, opening a gash under Johnson’s left eye. Johnson’s corner closes the cut between rounds, and he spends the eighth jabbing, moving and clinching to successfully stifle any notion that his age had suddenly caught up with him.
As if to prove a point, Johnson comes out as the aggressor in the ninth, landing a lead right and a quick right uppercut, then a heavier one that sends Risko crashing. He scrambles to his feet at the count of three, but is badly hurt.
Johnson moves in behind a hard left-right that sends Risko into the ropes and reopens the cut over his right eye. As the blood begins pouring into Risko’s eye, referee Lou Moret calls time-out and leads Risko to ringside. After a consultation with the reinstated Dr. Riviera, Moret waves the fight over at 1:42 of the ninth round, drawing a roar from the crowd Johnson had won over with his performance. At the end, Johnson led 79-73, 78-74, 77-75.
Gene Tunney W10 Ernie Schaaf: Tunney prevents the underdogs from sweeping the evening, delivering a clinical, if unexciting, performance en route to a majority decision.
Tunney outmaneuvers and out-jabs Schaaf through the early going. Unable to counter Tunney’s technical ability, Schaaf is forced to try to turn the match into a brawl. For the most part, he succeeds only in making things sloppy, but never really hurts the tournament’s No. 2 seed.
Schaaf does enough work inside to have the fight even on one scorecard after seven rounds, and holds a three-point lead on another at the same point – though it is not clear what fight the judge in question, Ray Hawkins was watching.
To his credit, Hawkins agreed with colleagues Hiroyuki Tezaki and Bobby Wells that the last three rounds belonged to Tunney. Tezaki had it 97-94, while Wells saw it at 98-93 and Hawkins turned in a 95-95 card.