THE BALTIMORE COURIER
Thursday, 2 November, 2006
Lyons suffers shock KO loss
in first IBL outing
Story by Mark Rosenthal
Baltimore heavyweight boxer Mark Lyons fell to the first defeat of his career last night when he was knocked out early in the 6th and final round of his International Boxing League world ranking bout at the Baltimore Coliseum. In a huge upset Lyons appeared to be cruising towards a unanimous decision win before his unfancied Californian opponent Floyd Johnson caught him with a left-right salvo twenty seconds into the frame. The right caught Lyons flush on the chin and staggered him. Johnson followed up with a left hook and another right hand that dropped Lyons to the absolute shock of the coliseum crowd. Lyons hit his head hard on the canvas and didn't move for a few seconds before pushing himself onto his side and then onto one knee. He shook his head and was glaring blankly at referee Vic Drakulich when the count reached ten, Johnson an unlikely KO winner at the 0:40 mark.
Based on the opening five rounds the final outcome seemed inexplicable. After looking uncharacteristically cautious through the first two frames Lyons took control in the 3rd, before dominating round four and then flooring Johnson with a thunderous right cross early in the 5th. Despite landing a succession of follow-up power punches Lyons was unable to finish the San Francisco-based Johnson off. That failure came back to haunt him big time early in the 6th. Lyons held a four-point lead on all three scorecards going into the final round and may have gotten a little careless in the moments before Johnson struck. Lyons brought a perfect 7-0(7) record into the evening and had taken out all seven of those opponents inside of four rounds. It was expected that he'd add Johnson to that list but it was, surprisingly, not to be.
Lyons had spoken of being nervous in the lead-up to his IBL debut. Those nerves seemed to affect his efforts in the early rounds but by the time round six rolled around he was in complete control. He'll have to quickly put aside the disappointment of his first professional loss as he's scheduled to be back in action on November 29. In the evening's co-feature Virginia native Ron E. Vincent scored a dominant unanimous decision win over the Italian Luigi Musina (60-52, 59-53, 60-52). Vincent sent Musina to the canvas twice, the first coming from a left-right combo early in the 4th and the second courtesy of a right cross late in the 5th. The Suffolk preacher improved his record to 7-0(3), outlanding Musina 210-64 in a commanding performance. Other winners on the night included Connecticut's Lawrence Clay-Bay and Kentucky's Marvin Hart, who dominated the Argentinian Alejandro Lavorante on the way to a unanimous decision win.