Ebb & Flow: Dusty Harrison Shines in National Debut, Caparello Retires Muriqi

Photo via All-In Entertainment

WEST ORANGE, N.J. - Phenoms can be formally introduced to the entire country just once. Subsequent performances, however august, lack the original’s sense of novelty.

Dusty Hernandez-Harrison, 19 (right), made his national T.V. debut here on Friday night, outpointing Tim Witherspoon, Jr., 29, en route to a unanimous decision victory in their 8-round welterweight clash.

The city wasn’t big but the lights were bright as Harrison opened ESPN2’s broadcast of Friday Night Fights on the eve of Super Bowl weekend. A maiden appearance at such a spectacle had all the makings of an audition, but Harrison, of Washington, D.C., didn’t seem to notice the camera’s watchful gaze — a testimony to his congenital poise inside the squared circle. With the win he improved his resume to a perfect 20-0 with 11 knockouts.

Being prone to sentimentality, I wanted to be inside Richard Codey Arena when the DMV’s favorite son passed into the public domain and became something other than a regional curiosity. I wanted to be there, lost in the narrative, when fight scribes across the land reached for their computers to extol the virtues of this precocious athlete, cementing his introduction to the public in the vast library of internet archives.

I left my childhood home in New Jersey as the last slow coils of blue withdrew from the sky, and barreled up the Garden State Parkway toward West Orange. The arena is part of a 36-acre recreation center set on the South Mountain Reservation, and typically used for ice skating and hockey practice. The reservation also boasts a well-stocked zoo with a big cat exhibit which, I must admit, might have diverted my route were it not shrouded in darkness.

But when I finally needled my way through the steep, winding roads of Millburn and approached the arena’s cinder-block facade, my thoughts left the zoo. An alabaster light surged from inside the building’s hangar-style roof, and a long procession of cars was nudging its way into the facility’s parking garage. It looked to me like a holy city, with innumerable fight fans making the pilgrimage to witness the event DiBella Entertainment coined “Super Brawl” — a propitious sight indeed.

Sadly, few of the night’s combatants possessed the temerity to measure up to such a hopeful tagline. Some were willing to brawl, but few performed in a fashion to merit the adjective “super.”

Add to this sobering cocktail nine preliminary bouts featuring obsequious foes and the once sedentary role of ringside reporter threatened to became a horizontal one, with my feet propped on the media table and my mouth fixed to the O-gape of exhaustion.

Nevertheless, the evening’s high point was Harrison, who wove a tapestry of accurate punching, dynamic footwork and sheer hunger that helped obstruct the card’s glaring deficiencies from this writer’s memory.

Coming here to West Orange was a logical progression in Harrison’s budding career. After fighting eight times in 2013 - a refreshing figure by any fan’s count - Harrison was due for a legitimate test on national television.

Witherspoon appeared well aware of the opportunity this fight presented and performed accordingly — with verve and tenacity. But Harrison manifested a patient and creative attack while dismantling the game Philadelphian; Witherspoon’s spirit simply failed to transcend Harrison’s athleticism and ring intelligence.

There is something unaccountably feline about Harrison. The ease and felicity with which he crouches and bends and retreats like a lanky Pernell Whitaker is intoxicating to watch, and the lilting velocity of his attack frequently caught my breath. He charges, fearless, towards danger, and I often mused on how he might possibly recover. What makes Harrison an entertaining fighter is how deeply he hides a playful daring in his otherwise serious disposition. On numerous occasions in the early rounds, Harrison wrenched his torso away from Witherspoon at the last possible moment, as if testing the limits of his reflexes, just as his opponent unfurled sweeping left hooks that cut through the air in vain. He enjoys being inside these ropes - that’s abundantly clear - but doesn’t jeopardize his future by taking empty risks, either.

The middle rounds saw Harrison abandon the speedy capers that so vexed Witherspoon earlier, when the youngster’s calculated right hands and subterranean left hooks found home at range. Harrison instead burrowed deep into Witherspoon’s chest, as if rummaging through an overstuffed closet, and refused to step around Witherspoon or relinquish an inch — often to his own detriment.

Here Witherspoon made it a fight in the purest sense, offering a riposte for every one of Harrison’s offensive garnishments. For his effort, Witherspoon collected three rounds on our scorecard. With every savage Witherspoon uppercut that tore through Harrison’s earmuff-guard, the Philadelphia contingent, which stood for the fight’s duration, begged for an encore. But as the rounds wore on, the son of Tim Witherspoon, Sr. — former heavyweight champion of the world — found himself arriving late to all matters of exchange. His opponent, this young lion, was turning up the heat.

In the closing rounds, Harrison’s stream of offense was like a Cormac McCarthy paragraph — long and without punctuation. From inside, his punches were dense and audible. At one point when circling Witherspoon he landed five consecutive stiff jabs, as if to belabor the point of his superiority.

Much to his credit, Witherspoon showed guts and a skill set that will prove troublesome for any prospect in the 147-pound division. We have little doubt that he will be back in black later this year.

Harrison, meanwhile, continues to impress us as he matures into a complete fighter. The few problems he encountered can be addressed with discipline. The young man is simply too hungry for battle; he would do well to learn from the mistakes of a young Fernando Vargas and make better use of his ample physical tools in future contests, for wiser and more talented opposition awaits him.

All three judges scored the bout 78-74 in favor of Harrison (20-0, 11 KOs). Witherspoon, Jr. falls to 10-4-1, 2 KOs.

Friday’s co-feature was a brutal, one-sided affair that sent Jorge Diaz, of New Brunswick, N.J., to the hospital and Connecticut-native Luis Rosa to that vague yet coveted position on the fringe of the junior featherweight division. After finding success early with an overhand right, Diaz was categorically outworked by the undefeated Rosa for the remainder of the fight.

Why this drubbing was allowed to last the scheduled eight rounds was obvious but disconcerting. It’s an antiquated tenet the boxing world pays too much credence: Every man who is game and still hurling ineffective punches while absorbing inhuman amounts of punishment, round after round, has the right to continue, if willing.

But competitive is a relative term. When a fighter has no chance of prevailing it is imperative that his corner, the referee or the onsite medical staff take action to curtail the damage. This is hardly the first time a fighter’s well-being has been disregarded, and it won’t be the last. Certain fans with unreasonable expectations must remember boxing careers are brief, but life is long - or should be - and infinitely better if spent healthy.

Scores were 78-72, 79-71 and 80-70, all in favor of Luis Rosa, who boosts his record to 16-0, 7 KOs. Diaz’s record, a mere afterthought, falls to 17-3, 10 KOs.

The main event saw Australian prospect Blake Caparello shut out local favorite and former title-contender Elvir Muriqi, of New York, in a 10-round light heavyweight contest. The paucity of action in the bout almost emptied the arena like a fire drill.

Muriqi, often credited as “The Kosovo Kid,” fought like a frustrated old man besotted by Caparello’s awkward style. Caparello was active if not devastating through all ten rounds, honing in on Muriqi from a safe distance and peppering him with tame combinations. That Caparello’s punches somehow managed to stamp red shapes into his opponent’s forehead says more, I think, about the condition of Muriqi’s skin than the Aussie’s crack aim.

Caparello passed yet another test in America (he beat the irrelevant Alan Green late last year), earning his 19th win in as many fights. Muriqi was slapped into announcing, or slurring, his retirement as the crowd filed from the arena, in a bizarre and especially sad moment. Muriqi, who challenged Antonio Tarver for a light heavyweight title in 2007, leaves the “hardest game” behind with the impressive record of 40-6, with 21 of those wins coming by way of knockout.

Cecil McCalla, of Randallstown, M.D., earned his 17th victory in as many fights, outworking Philadelphia native Eric Mitchell (23-11-1, 11 KO’s) in a 6-round welterweight bout; 18-year old super middleweight Junior Younan, sporting a Hulk-green Mohawk and an excess of athleticism, improved to 3-0 after blitzing Missouri’s Thomas Allen (1-4) at 1:09 in the first round of a requisite mismatch; and in the walkout bout, just before midnight, Patrick “Paddy Boy” Farrell, a firefighter from Jersey City, N.J, floored Lucas St. Claire of North Dakota with a vicious left hook en route to a first round TKO in their cruiserweight match-up, improving to 9-2-1, 5 KO’s. One can only postulate why Farrell, a big draw in North Jersey, spent most of the night in the dressing room, only to emerge as most of the crowd was shuffling to their cars.

Driving south on the Parkway, I slipped into the kind of reverie typically reserved for young men on open roads. Maybe it was the dolorous trumpet of Clifford Brown whispering through the speakers inside my truck, or the precarious lighting on the dash — so dim I could barely see the speedometer. But I thought about the elevated train platforms speeding past, empty, and those newspaper dispensers staring out at the world with vacant, glassy stares — sentinels guarding some post that no longer exists.Then there was the string of A-frames coated in darkness, and the gutted industrial buildings like Siberian prisons of lore, looming above banks of dead grass. It all seemed incredibly lonely.

I thought about the Witherspoon family making that lonely trip back to Philadelphia, tonight or tomorrow morning, shocked by what just happened but sure of their next move — to keep fighting. The father having known what it’s like to be a champion, with his son next to him or resting in the back seat, who will probably never taste that haunting delicacy, but won’t stop lusting after it either — that’s in his blood.

Which made me think of Dusty Harrison, his quiet grace, his promise. How I was there the night the average fan around the country first saw him inside a boxing ring. I wanted to get home and tell somebody, anybody, what I’d seen — and never forget it.