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ESPN Friday Night Fights Recap

March 23, 2007

Foxwoods Resort and Casino-Mashantucket, Connecticut

Welterweight (147 pounds) 10 Round Match:

Said Ouali (20-2, 12 KO's, 146 pounds) vs. Irving Garcia (14-2-1, 7 KO's, 147 pounds)

Garcia has been a sparring partner for an impressive resume of fighters including Felix Trinidad, Miguel Cotto and Oscar De La Hoya. Ouali fights southpaw and is apparently working on his defense, which makes sense as he has finished four of his last five fights by putting his opponents on their backs. Garcia is a two time Puerto Rican amateur champion, which has helped land him the job as punching bag for the truly elite fighters in the game. Ouali, on the other hand, has made his record against weak opposition.Whenever the man, now hailing from New Jersey, has tried to step up to the next level, he has been knocked down while being handed one of those two losses on his record. This is Ouali's third time at a tougher level fight and an important challenge for him to meet if he is ever going to advance his career as a boxer. Garcia finds himself, also in need of a win after two losses in his two attempts to step up toface tougher competition, after having beatenrelatively weaker opposition.

Round 1 saw mostly a feeling out process. The left handed stance of Ouali seemed to confuse Garcia to start the round. With about 20 seconds left Garcia went down, but it was clearly a slip and was called so correctly ruled by the referee. No controversy here so far. I think Garcia got the best of it in the last half of the round and that was probably good enough to win it for him 10-9 Garcia.

About a minute into round 2, a right uppercut and left hook from Ouali sends Garcia to the canvas. This was not a flash knockdown. There was definitely some staggering and such before Garcia went down. Garcia satisfactorily gets up, but he is still on shaky legs with a lot of time left to go in this round. This is not Garcia's first trip to the mat. Heis going to need to use whatever he learned in his previous experiences fighting back from a knockdown if he is going to last out this round. Post knockdown, the referee pauses the action twice, once to warn both fighters about low blows. When action is resumed, Ouali can't get at Garcia fast enough. Then the second stoppage came almost immediately after that. Garcia slipped throwing a punch and one his gloves contacted the mat. It was accurately called a slip. There is an immediate pause in action as required to check the fighter, but it was brief. It almost appeared enough to allow Garcia to recover, but Ouali put that thought to rest when action resumed. Ouali delivered three left hands to the head of Garcia that sent the recipient sprawling to the ground and into the ropes. The referee had clearly seen enough, and the fight was over without a count being applied.

Ouali has won his last 4 fights by knockout and won his last seven overall. That was a great showing by Ouali. Hopefully he continues to get quality matches, as he definitely impressed here. The time of the fight is 1:44 of the second round where Said Ouali wins by technical knockout. Ouali says he wants people to want to see him and this is a good start towards that goal.