By John Wall
A capacity crowd turned out to support Philadelphia’s Chazz Witherspoon (26-2 18 KO’s) at the Grand Ballroom of Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. The partisan crowd was hoping Witherspoon would return to his winning ways, while cagy veteran Livin Castillo (16-8 10 KO’s), of Atlantic City via Ecuador, a much better fighter than his record would indicate, was looking to make Witherspoon’s degree in pharmaceutical sales to use as his source of income.
Witherspoon got off to a slow start, losing the first four rounds on my card. Although he was the bigger man, Witherspoon was unable to mount an offense and was fed a steady diet of body shots by Castillo, whose game plan looked to be pot-shot then get out of range. The fight plan was working beautifully, on paper, as Castillo won the early rounds, taking no damage, but also delivering very little as well.
Sensing their fighter needed a lift, those in attendance came to life at the start of round five. Witherspoon did as well, feeding off the new energy. The St. Joseph’s university graduate started fighting with a greater sense of urgency, rediscovering his right hand, but his power shots failed to find the mark and the round that started as momentum changer ended with an even more confident Castillo.
One of the beauties of heavyweight division is a big strong man is never out of the fight. The fatal flaw in Castillo’s plan was letting a fighter with Witherspoon’s punching power hang around to long. The Philadelphia crowd soon got what they drove down the Atlantic City Expressway to see.
Early in the seventh round Witherspoon unloaded a right uppercut to the chin of Castillo that sent him to the canvas. A game but rubber legged Castillo got up, but Witherspoon landed several more right hands, forcing Referee Earl Brown to stop the contest at 2:21 of the seventh round.
In a battle of Super middleweights Philadelphia’s Farah Ennis (16-0 10 KO’s) bested an out classed Reggie Pena (6-4 1KO’s) from Ocala, Florida. Pena has a habit of leaning in with his head and Ennis was only to happy to use his right uppercut to demonstrate why that is not a good idea. Pena did manage to mount an attack in the third round only to be knocked down by a body shot in the closing seconds. Ennis sealed the deal in the third by another body shot and Pena was counted out at 1:56 of the round.
In a six round lightweight, contest Jose Reyes (23-8 8 KO) of Vineland got bested by Colombia’s Walter Estrada (37-13 25 KO) in a split decision. Estrada, a southpaw, knocked Reyes down in the first with a left cross. Estrada suffered a cut to the bridge of his nose in the fourth round. But his better ring generalship carried the day and swayed the judges his way. Scores were 58-55 and 57-56 for Estrada, with the third card reading 57-56 Reyes.
In a one sided match in the light heavyweight division Lavarn Harvell (6-0 3 KO) of Atlantic City knocked down Jackson, TN’s Nathan Bedwell (2-4 1KO) three times in four rounds on his way to a unanimous decision victory. Scores were a lopsided 40-33 on all three cards.
Super Middleweight (and son of former heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon) Isiah Seldon (2-0 1 KO) of Atlantic City drew a nice crowd to his second pro fight and didn’t disappoint them, stopping Jason Johns (0-3) of Danville Virginia at 2:57 of round 1.
In the opening bout of the evening, Atlantic City’s Eugene Soto (3-0 1KO) added another win to his record besting Maurice Williams (1-6 1KO) of Camden via majority decision. Mr. Williams may be the cockiest 1-6 fighter of all time and his clowning in the ring may have cost him in the judges’ minds. The scorecard of 37-37 was overruled by tallies of 38-36 and 38-37 for Soto.
