Malik Jackson Advances to Finals of USA Boxing Nationals
Heavyweights Josh Temple (right) fights Earl Newman. Photos by Raquel Ruiz.
by Sarah Deming
SPOKANE, Wash.–It’s a step up in class as we move to the Northern Quest for the semifinals of USA Boxing Nationals, where there is satisfyingly loud hip hop for the ring walks and a real person singing the national anthem instead of an iPod.
Light flyweight Natalie Gonzales of New Rochelle looked very strong roughing up Sarah Dawson of Spring, Texas. Sad to see Dawson eliminated, as she is one of the most entertaining characters outside the ring. In a split decision, the Army’s Alex Love fended off a surprisingly stiff challenge from Maureeca Lambert of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, who looks quite poised for someone who has only been boxing two years.
Defending light flyweight champ Leroy Davila of Trenton turned in the most dominating performance of the morning’s session in his unanimous win over Dominique Sosa of Humble, Texas. Davila is a sharp, switch-hitting counterpuncher with a good body attack. He will face San Antonio’s Joshua Franco in the finals, who came from behind to outwork Melik Elliston of Denver.
D.C. darling Malik Jackson (above right) showed off about a dozen different southpaw jabs in his educated win over Marshall Sanchez of Houston, which the judges oddly saw as a split decision. Afterward, Jackson watched Shawn Simpson counterpunch Aurel Love of Cleveland, setting up a rematch of last year’s final round slugfest. Jackson took that meeting en route to an Outstanding Boxer of the Tournament title; how will he approach this one?
“It depends on how he comes out,” Jackson said. “From the looks of him here, I’m gonna have to keep the pressure on.”[[MORE]]
Chicago’s Shawn Simpson has been training a year for another shot at Jackson and plans to make the rematch less dramatic. He took two training camps, one in Colorado Springs and one in New Jersey, where Leroy Davila gave him good southpaw sparring.
In the lackluster women’s light welterweight class, Destiny Chearino of Warwick, Rhode Island beat Stacey Parker of Aurora, Illinois. Chearino upset defending champ Bertha Aracil, in the quarterfinals, in one of the few decisions of the tournament with which we disagreed. She will face Jasmine Singh in the finals, who outslugged fellow Californian Faith Franco (above).
Although Stiff Jab vehemently opposed AIBA’s push to make skirts the official uniform for women’s boxing in the 2012 London Games, we do feel that skirts have a place in the ring, provided they are flattering. Tiara Brown has been smashing in her gladiator-style fringe, reminiscent of Hector “Macho” Camacho, and Jasmine Singh is one of several women in the tournament to sport the adorable Title mini, which is sexy without being distracting. Every woman likes options.
Speaking of adorable, check out these two. Twenty-year-old Niko Valdes (above) of Miami put up a brave fight against Oakland’s Jasper McCargo (below), who at 6’3” is enormous for a light heavyweight.
“I have light bones,” said McCargo, 26, who sports a flag tattoo in honor of his Cameroonian ancestry and works as a clerk at a law firm when he is not boxing. McCargo used the jab and uppercut to good effect in this close decision. He advances to meet Julius Butler of St. Louis, who easily bested Tacoma’s Dugan Lawton.
Fallon Farrar failed to make welterweight, so Melissa Kelly of Somerville advances via walkover to provide cannon fodder for defending champ Danyelle Wolf of San Diego. Wolf is a tremendous physical specimen with rather crude skills; once you get above lightweight, the only interesting women’s weight class is middle. We look forward to those semifinals tonight, featuring the long-awaited return of Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields, who texted us this morning to say “It’s going to be a fight to be a fight.”
Claressa cheered loudly as her Flint, Michigan teammate Sardius Simmons took a unanimous decision over Smbat Bagdassarian.
I left press row to corner for Earl “Flash” Newman (top left) in the other heavyweight semifinal against St. Louis knockout artist Josh Temple. This was a great stylistic match between a boxer and a puncher that should have been the final. I always prefer to be on the boxer’s side, and I thought we might have edged it out with superior handspeed and timing, but the judges gave Temple the nod. Impossible to be objective from the corner, especially with a fighter as classy as Flash.
I was too sad to pay much attention to the superheavyweights. As expected, defending champion Cam F Awesome, he of the pink trunks for breast cancer awareness, dispatched with Cassius Chaney of Charlestown, Rhode Island, who had lodged a successful complaint against USA Boxing to be allowed to compete in this tournament despite having less than the mandated minimum of 21 bouts.
Awesome will face Elvis Garcia of Tacoma in tomorrow’s final. Garcia outboxed the tubby Marcellus Williams of Las Vegas. It’s nice to see a local fighter advance.