By- Danny Serratelli

In the main event Acelino Freitas, 38-1 (32), came away with a split decision victory over Zahir Raheem, who fell to 27-2 (16). It was a very unpredictable fight that at first glance appeared to be action packed. However, a closer look revealed that most of the action did not amount to either fighter landing many clean punches in a number of the rounds. There was a lot of holding, pushing, slipping, and missing, which made most of the rounds difficult to score.

Between the mutual feeling out process and holding, Freitas started to connect with the big right hand early in the fight. It appeared he may have dropped Raheem a couple times, but a closer look at the replay revealed that referee Steve Smoger had made the right call in calling slips at times when Freitas and Raheem were tripping over each others feet.

Freitas did a lot of complaining in the bout, particularly after an unintentional head butt that did not cut him, but did cut Raheem. In another strange occurrence, Raheem’s cutman supposedly ran out of the substance that was being used to treat the cut in the corner. The HBO announcers were told that Raheem’s corner tried to switch cutmen at the point when this happened, but the commission would not allow it. They did apparently allow the other cutman to give the substance to the cutman working Raheem’s corner, and the cut never appeared to be a serious issue in the fight.

From beginning to end the fight was difficult to score. There was a lot of moving and action, but it was difficult to recognize which fighter did more on a round by round basis as far as 1.) Clean punching 2.) Effective aggressiveness 3.) Ring generalship and 4.) Defense. Freitas seemed to be the busier fighter more often then Raheem, but Raheem did little things that make a difference. In the end there were few clear cut rounds. Judge Steve Weisfeld scored the bout 115-113 Freitas. Judge Clark Sammartino had it 115-113 Raheem, and the swing vote came from judge Glenn Feldman who had it 116-112 for the winner Acelino Freitas. My card read 115-114 for Freitas at the final bell.

Despite some disparity in the scoring, along with the fact that people felt that Freitas may get a hometown decision in Connecticut because of the vast number of Brazilians he packs in at the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, the decision was not controversial. Most of the rounds were close and a lot of them legitimately could have been scored either way.

2004 Olympic gold medalist, Andre Ward, 9-0 (5), remained undefeated when his fight with Andy Kolle, 9-1 (7) was stopped in the corner after six rounds of action. Ward displayed excellent hand and foot speed and put together some impressive combinations while his opponent Kolle showed an iron chin. The disparity in speed seemed to be what did Kolle in, and he was taking a lot of punishment, but the previously undefeated fighter appeared to be very upset in picking up his first loss as a professional.

originally published by www.doghouseboxing.com
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