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Ike Quartey defends his WBA Welterweight Title against Ralph Jones on HBO Boxing
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00:01November 22, 1996. Tampa, Florida. Marco Antonio Barrera, the 122-pound world champion, faced Challenger Junior Jones. The previously unbeaten
00:12Barrera was in for a rude awakening.
00:17That right-handed Junior Jones ran. Another one. Good left hand stopped Barrera in his tracks. Blood-stricken into Barrera's
00:34left-off. New urgency for the unbeaten Mexicans. Down he goes. Hard right hand by Junior.
00:44The referee is giving him an awful long time to survive. More time than he deserved. Why did he get
00:50so much time to survive? More time than he deserved. And it's going to be over. The bell ends the
00:57round. Barrera is knocked down. The referee stopped the fight. Junior Jones has picked up a monument upset over Marco
01:06Antonio Barrera and revived his star status.
01:11Tonight, it's redemption or repeat. Also, you'll see Ike Porte. The glory in the 147-pound division may belong right
01:21now to Oscar De La Hoya. But watch out for Porte.
01:25Ike Porte will try to show you tonight why he could be the top welterweight in the world.
01:37Porte begins to open up.
01:41Philip Cole's gone. He's going to go down right here in a second.
01:47The rematch and respect tonight.
01:56The rematch and respect tonight.
02:00The rematch let's open up.
02:09The rematch and respect tonight.
02:44tonight live from las vegas nevada just days after oscar de la hoya's controversial decision
02:49over burnell whitaker the grittier side of boxing welterweight champion ike corte takes on
02:55ralph tiger jones then the rematch you may well have been waiting for junior jones against marco
03:01antonio barrera 12 rounds of boxing two confident warriors in each case we're at the las vegas hilton
03:08which itself is making a comeback of sorts into the boxing world tonight marco antonio barrera
03:13seeks to avenge his devastating loss of last november in that fight challenger junior jones
03:19surprised the boxing world including barrera by mixing it up inside more than expected and winning
03:26a battle of traded punches will it be another slugfest or a more tactical fight this time
03:32we will soon find out and hello again everybody i'm jim lampley we welcome you to this special
03:38edition of hbo's world championship boxing on which ike corte will state his case as the best
03:44welterweight in the world yes even better than oscar de la hoya and then marco antonio barrera
03:49and junior jones will fight a heavily anticipated rematch because their first fight was such an
03:55exciting and stunning upset for jones working with me as always hbo boxing analyst larry merchant and
04:00larry before we get started with tonight's festivities a brief comment from you on last saturday
04:05night's pay-per-view telecast of whitaker and delahoya thank you jim this is the first time that
04:11we've been on the air since that fight and so i wanted to say that i made some remarks before
04:16the fight
04:17that some people were offended by that clearly was not my intention but if those people were offended
04:25i do apologize sincerely to them all right larry back in a moment to revisit the welterweight division
04:31with you but first we go to the 122 pound weight class this man roy jones jr was about to
04:38win a world
04:39light heavyweight championship from mike mccallum on the same card last november where your buddy junior
04:44jones knocked off marco antonio barrera that fight preceded yours how aware were you of what was going
04:50on that night and what's your instinct as to whether it can happen again well jim i was very aware
04:54of
04:55everything that was that was going on for one me and junior do communicate more than me and most of
05:00the
05:00other boxing world besides i corte and a few other guys however i was always the inspiration to junior
05:06i think and i know that junior had all the tools that it took to really beat a guy like
05:10marco antonio
05:11barrero i did tell you that barrero was one of the best phenoms that i've seen in years he was
05:16a guy who
05:17was coming on to be one of the greatest in this sport of boxing especially in the lighter weight classes
05:22but he was too easy to hit with the right hand by kennedy mckinney and as you well know junior
05:27jones may
05:28have one of the best right hands in the business outside of myself and a few others roy i know
05:33you'll
05:34still contend that you're the best pound for pound fighter in the world in a moment truly like corte
05:38is going to file his latest application and he'll be wildly motivated in the wake of the relatively
05:43inconclusive result of whitaker de la hoya right right the whitaker de la hoya fight was supposed to
05:49determine the new pound for pound however i feel as though i still retain my title in that fight
05:54corte in my opinion may be the best welterweight out right now he's strong he's mentally tough he
06:00can punch he can take a punch he has all the tools necessary to contend hardly for that pound
06:06for pound belt in my opinion i think right now toughness he gets the vote over oxy de la hoya
06:11and
06:12for the youth he gets the vote over pernell whitaker and the power so right now i think i corte
06:17does get
06:17my vote for the welterweight division of pound for pound the best fighter all right let's turn to the
06:22business implications for corte as we get ready to watch him against an opponent ralph tiger jones
06:27de la hoya larry we know is getting ready to fight david camau in june possibly hector macho camacho
06:34in september possibly a mandatory title defense against a frenchman named carpentier in december
06:40or january whitaker will continue to troll for either of the two big money rematches perhaps against chavez
06:45or against de la hoya what is up and what's going on for ike corte
06:50well first at this very minute as we speak he's got bonfires burning for him and drums beating for
06:58him and a giant television screen right in the heart of his hometown of akra in ghana of west
07:05africa with tens of thousands of people awaiting the start of this fight what he's also got going
07:11for him as roy indicated is the sincere attention of the rest of the boxing world which does view him
07:19at least on a par with the other name welterweights delahoya and trinidad and none of the other name
07:26welterweights want to hear their say they're named in the same sentence with him much less be in the
07:31same ring with him he will be in the ring with a fighter named ralph tiger jones tonight and the
07:39only thing i can guarantee you about all of the joneses here tonight is that roy is the only one
07:45sure to go
07:46the distance yep he'll be with us till the very end right now we take a look at the tail
07:51of the tape
07:51for ike corte and ralph tiger jones and you can see that they're both 27 years old jones actually with
07:58a one inch height advantage look at the difference in their weights tonight getting into the ring
08:02corte has gained 14 and a half pounds since weighing in yesterday he says because he allowed himself to
08:09eat the good african food that he's been avoiding in training for the fight four inch reach advantage for
08:14tiger jones but it'll be interesting to see if he can hold off the aggressive left jab of ike corte
08:20punch
08:20that numbers larry take a look and see how active these fighters are but they're similar but the
08:26numbers don't mean a whole lot because of the different class of competition that they have faced
08:35corte's jab numbers however are important because he has a thunderous jab
08:41it's the equivalent of a lot of other people's power punches rules of the bout with our ringside
08:48scorer harold letterman the ike corte ralph tiger jones fight is scheduled for 12 rounds there is no
08:53standing eight count but the three knockdown rule is in effect only the referee can stop the fight and
08:59you can be saved by the bell in the 12th and final round only jim all right harold and now
09:04let's get ready
09:05to take our first look at ralph tiger jones from mckeesport pennsylvania 31 professional fights so far
09:13only one loss 22 kos but as you can see mostly against nondescript opposition this is his very
09:21first championship fight the man behind him pat burns out of miami florida who was the olympic coach
09:26last year in 1996 has been training tiger only for about four weeks he took over from richie giacchetti
09:33when tiger decided he wasn't get enough getting enough attention from giacchetti
09:36who was spending most of his working time apparently with his new heavyweight a fellow named tyson
09:53jones out of the high school football town of mckeesport pa did a little wrestling in high school
10:00and there's the record as we showed you his trainer pat burns says he's a slow starter they hope he
10:07can
10:07survive the first four rounds against cortez which doesn't sound to me like an optimistic way to go into
10:15the fight
10:17and you see referee joe cortez examining jones and his equipment as he enters the ring and next up will
10:24be
10:24the ghanaian world champion ike cortez who has trained for the past several weeks in roy jones's
10:31gym in pensacola florida roy what kind of a guy is he ike cortez is one of the nicest guys
10:35you ever
10:36want to meet he's very soft-spoken never has much to say doesn't have much flesh about himself but he
10:41means business when he comes to the ring he brings a business-minded attitude that's why i love to be
10:47around him he's a strong person he's a strong-minded guy and i think he's going to be the best
10:52welterweight to
10:52come for the next five or six years roy tell me why has he added 15 pounds since yesterday afternoon's
11:02weigh-in this sounds like he had either been totally dehydrated or over trained it's it's a it's a big
11:08number ike cortez trains very hard he's a very good dietitian he keeps a very stringent diet he does
11:15his weight loss all by dieting and all by dehydration that dehydration speeds up the islands in the body
11:21and after he weighs in he goes and puts the fluids back in his body to me roberto durian did
11:27it for all
11:27that time it gave him a big size advantage over most of his opponents and i think you should use
11:31every advantage that you have in this dirty cool sport of boxing cortez says that he trains
11:38more than 300 sparring rounds for tonight's fight that's an extraordinary number of rounds of sparring
11:45but you've heard roy jones says he is all business when he gets into the gym he even beat up
11:51on a few of
11:51my spawn partners sorry about that let's go up to michael buffer for the official introductions
11:58ladies and gentlemen good evening and welcome to the las vegas hilton where tonight main events in
12:04association with your undisputed undefeated king of beers budweiser this buds for you present 12 rounds of
12:12boxing for the wba welterweight championship of the world this bout is sanctioned by the nevada state
12:20athletic commission and by the world boxing association wpa president hilberto mendoza
12:26supervisor at ringside is murray sleep the three judges scoring this bout on a 10-point must system are
12:34bill graham hank myers and julio roldan and when the bell rings your referee in charge of the action
12:42working for the 91st time in a world title bout is joe cortez
12:50supposed to be here and now ladies and gentlemen introducing first fighting out of the blue
12:55corner wearing black trimmed with red and weighing 147 pounds his professional record 30 victories 22
13:04by knockout with only one loss from pittsburgh pennsylvania here is the challenger ralph
13:12tiger jones
13:19and his opponent across the ring fighting out of the red corner wearing red gold and green and
13:24weighing 146 and one half pounds his professional record a perfect 33 consecutive victories without
13:32a loss 28 by knockout represented by ab stars of paris france he comes to us from accra ghana africa
13:41presenting the undefeated wba welterweight champion of the world ike bazooka
13:49and ike bazooka
14:02all right gentlemen we went over the rules in a dressing room
14:06i want a good clean fight protect yourselves at all time keep those punches up give me good sportsman
14:13like conduct is understood shake hands good luck to both ralph tiger jones is the namesake of a very
14:19very well known fighter a middleweight back in the 50s who appeared very often
14:25on the friday night fights of that era
14:27and pulled off a famous upset of sugar ray robinson in one of robinson's comebacks
14:34all we can hope for is just a little bit of that tiger jones because if
14:40this tiger jones isn't that good he will be outclassed
14:45and across the ring you get your first look at tiger jones in the black trunks you notice
14:50muscular well-developed upper body very thin legs that could be trouble against quartet's punching power
14:56and you might have heard trainer pat burns a little bit earlier in the ring
14:59saying to his fighter you belong here you deserve to be here obviously attempting to convince jones
15:06not to be overwhelmed by the occasion there's the excellent jab by ike quarter early in the fight
15:11i think tiger jones will get a lot of this and tiger seems a little tense so far in the
15:16fight
15:17yeah the job for him is to get through those punches to the body where he likes to work
15:23tiger jones sort of pawing with the jab trying to find something that he can launch in the face of
15:30quartet's early assault which has been mostly left jabs and a couple of straight right hands
15:36tiger's not a powerful guy so i don't know why he's rushing in here to meet the power
15:39from ike quarter this doesn't seem like a good tactic to me well his fight plan roy is to try
15:44to stay
15:45inside of quartet's power according to what trainer pat burns wants him to do he's going to have to
15:51convince himself to step up and stay in quartet's chest and that's not an easy thing to do you don't
15:57want to be in quartet's chest that's where quartet's strongest punches are right there in his chest
16:01quartet is a very strong guy he's very powerful he outweighs his opponent by 11 pounds right now
16:07why would you go try to stand toe to toe or get in his chest as they would say you
16:11got a recipe
16:12for an early knockout that's what it looks like to me well you got to dance with what brung you
16:17and
16:17if this is the style that got him to this point i don't know that he's capable of changing it
16:24i don't know i've seen florida's change their strategy against florida state from the first time to
16:28the second time jones's legs wobbly as quartet cases him across the ring minute and a half still to
16:34go in the round tiger jones unable to throw much and seemingly on wobbly legs as quartet presses the
16:41attack behind the jab and the straight right hand like that this fight shouldn't last too much
16:47longer i think it's a very good finisher and tiger's in deep trouble the one thing he isn't doing is
16:53going to the body though roy this is a place where he should be going to the body there it
16:58is
16:58jumping him up right there was the first good shot to the body
17:06well i don't know if he can his his trainer said he's got to get through four of these rounds
17:10i
17:10don't know that anybody could no i don't think many people could get through four of these rounds
17:15well certainly not standing there in the corner and taking it he's going to have to try to get his
17:18legs back under him there was another body shot larry yeah good straight oh there he goes knock down of
17:24the fight tiger jones just taken way too much punishment for his legs to stay under six seven
17:31and you'll see if quartet can finish in the next 30 seconds and get credit for the first round knockout
17:37that he would dearly love to have in the wake of whitaker de la hoya good body shot that drove
17:42jones back
17:43at that point now i think you see why those guys don't want to talk about fighting pipe quartet
17:50nobody's going out of their way to fight him well i'm not seconds to go in the round i'm not
17:55sure
17:55that those other guys couldn't do just as well against uh this fighter i'm sure they could second knock
18:02down four five six seven eight i'm pretty sure those other guys don't really want none of this guy
18:16oh time and i'll go out and see it tiger jones makes it out of the first round and walks
18:23on wobbly
18:24legs back to his corner quartet got credit for two knockdowns tell me you're right no you sure tiger
18:31listen listen tiger okay let me take one more shot like this any if i don't see any defense from
18:36you at
18:36all and you don't start throwing punches i'm stopping this fight do you understand you've got 30 seconds in
18:41there i don't care if he drops you or not i'm going to stop this fight do you understand the
18:46graphic should say quartet on top and jones on the bottom and are you all right you saw that quartet
18:52threw 132 punches in the round yikes withering assault okay remember that but of course there wasn't
19:00much coming back at him but that's still a lot of punches tiger jones has four children he's never
19:04made more than five thousand dollars for a boxing match he's getting a hundred thousand dollars tonight
19:09let's hope he takes good care all right seconds out take a look at the second knockdown in the
19:14round it was just a push because jones was in so much trouble one thing you see here larry is
19:22when
19:22i tell you about the size differential when a guy knows how to correctly lose the weight come in 10
19:27and
19:2712 sometimes 15 pounds heavier than he showed up at the scale and he does it the right way it
19:32can show
19:33to be a big advantage and this is basically what has happened tonight that's why i don't like weigh-ins
19:37the day before the fight because some fighters can use that to advantage if the weigh-in had been
19:43around noon today he couldn't have done that well if he's as good as his word pat burns the manager
19:50or the trainer should be stepping out of the corner to stop this pretty soon the referee's going to stop
19:54it soon tiger hasn't thrown a whole one punch this round now there he throws a right hand after he
19:59stuck it jab and he tries a couple more he's not getting anything out of it i guess pat burns
20:05the
20:05trainer has seen enough to let it go for a little while longer
20:14target practice in rounds one and two for ike forte have got it
20:20too easy just too easy
20:32they're trying to
20:42they're yelling from tiger jones corner that corte is tired but i don't see it yet
20:48it was a hard right hand shot by corte jones wobbling again
20:55minute and a half to go in the second round you wonder how much more joe cortez wants to see
21:02well it's about 1 20 in the morning in acra in ghana and people don't see won't be staying up
21:11too
21:11late there tonight well now here's some brave stuff from tiger jones who has found an opportunity to
21:17start getting his own punches off and is doing the best he can and if he lands some body shots
21:22he may
21:22have a chance that he can where
21:26we're out down just a little bit
21:42tiger jones managing to defend himself just enough to stay upright in round two it's going to be another
21:49100 plus punch round for quartet but pat burns insisted to us that if jones could just survive
21:57the first four rounds he would come on strong in the latter stages of the fight and it's going to
22:03take a hell of an act of will to do that and he may have that will inside of him
22:06somewhere and it looks
22:07like we will soon find out
22:09stay
22:09go get out
22:12parquet slowing down perceptibly as round two comes to a close and tiger's still in there
22:28breathe breathe relax now listen you're not out of your nose breathe for your mouth listen to me
22:33you're not out of the woodwork yet do you understand
22:36you're still wobbly you're fighting on balls and heart right now okay you
22:41understand but he's getting tired you've got to keep that defense you give him
22:47you can't give him any punching room stay as close to me stay as close as you
22:53can to him do not let him keep you out here you backed him up late in that
22:56round I know you're tired but you've got a heart like a racehorse you've got to
23:00back him up what he's vulnerable good right hand over the top of the jab
23:12you know he is a very strong puncher it seems to me Roy but not a what I would
23:17call a power puncher well he's pretty powerful because of the speed that's on
23:20his punches the only thing here is it seems as though he's not really mentally
23:24into this fight like he would be if he were fighting somebody that was supposed
23:28to be really a threat to him you always can tell by the sparkle in the guy's
23:31eyes the way that they come to the ring the way that they bounce around when
23:35they end up in the pre-fight warm-up when he fought Vince Phillips for example he's
23:39much more crisper in the pre-fight bounce around than he was tonight
23:43well how could he not be super motivated tonight I mean this is his showcase on
23:48national television at home in Ghana one week after Whitaker De La Hoya his chance to
23:53make his statement that he is as so many people claim he is the best welterweight in the world
23:57how could he not be motivated tonight well when you fight a guy like Tiger Jones
24:01who's not supposed to be of that caliber of a Whitaker and a De La Hoya he feels as
24:05though no matter how good he looks against Tiger they're gonna say well if
24:08that's not Whitaker or that's not De La Hoya so I mean he's motivated enough to do
24:12his job I think but he's just not as crisp and as sharp as he would be if he were
24:16fighting one of the big boys I know for a fact because I'm looking at him I can tell
24:19he's a lot more flat on his feet than he normally is and it's not because he wants to
24:24knock tag out or he's trying to hit harder it's just that this is what he's choosing to do
24:29he always have that little smile on his lips even in the gym always it's like he knows something
24:36he knows how strong he is that's right how good he is and he knows he has a lot down
24:40inside when it
24:41comes down to it when you're a nice guy as Quarte is is it impossible not to have a little
24:57sympathy for
24:58the opponent when it's target practice the way it was in the first two rounds no it's not impossible
25:02he probably could have a little bit of sympathy with right hand shot by Jones his best punch of
25:08the of the fight Jones is really trying hard to win this fight don't make no mistake about it oh
25:15you heard Pat Boat Pat Burns say you're fighting on balls and heart and he's got no shortage of
25:20both commodities right he's doing a very good job on hard and balls right now I was fighting very
25:28small he's fighting conservative he's not wasting too many punches everything he's throwing is short
25:32right in front of him because this is where Tiger Jones is he's throwing not too many wild punches he's
25:37throwing right down the pipe where Tiger is the only thing is like Larry said earlier he should go to
25:42the body a little bit more and if Jones wants Quarte to punch himself out in the early stages of
25:48the
25:48fight well the good news is by CompuBox statistics Quarte threw 245 punches in the first two rounds
25:56that's a lot of work and he's still throwing a lot of them right now as we speak and I
26:01have another
26:01hundred-plus punch round the Jones is no longer on wobbly legs no he's got some pretty good punches
26:12Quarte still with that little grin on his face as he fires back at Tiger Jones left and right combinations
26:30and the look at Marco Antonio Barrera in his dressing room as he prepares to try to avenge the only
26:36loss of his career
26:37against the man who knocked him out last November Brooklyn's junior Jones
26:46incidentally when we go to Ike Quarte's corner where they speak the ga language of Quarte's tribe our
26:53interpreter is Fred Asifo stick to the body punches okay double the jabs start from the midsection all the
27:02way up take your time he seems to want to go the full length of the fight okay so just
27:08stick to
27:08the body punches take your time take your time his ass is tired his ass ought to be tired his
27:19ass is
27:19averaging 113 punches per round through the first three rounds anybody's ass would be tired
27:30well right now Jones is thinking they told me all I got to do is get through four rounds and
27:34then I
27:35can start to fight he's just got one more of these to get through can he make it I think
27:42he'll make it
27:42because Ike is content with just hitting him at will hitting him more than he's hitting Ike and fighting a
27:48good tactical fight here well you saw Jones celebrating ecstatically at the end of round three and even
27:55taunting Quarte that he had made it that far Quarte of course smiled at us I'll tell you Quarte is
28:03a
28:03very soft-spoken guy doesn't get into the jive talking and stuff like that he means business he
28:07comes to do business and Tiger does mean upset and he's here to upset Bazooka tonight if he can you
28:15think
28:15they know jive and Acro Quarte standing his ground against a man who wants to lean in against his
28:35chest Quarte firing short punches and generally landing about two or three blows to every blow
28:42landed by Tiger Jones but Tiger Jones's game plan still at this moment is simply to survive and try
28:48to get to the later rounds and if that precipitous weight gain 14 pounds in the last 27 hours is
28:55gonna hurt Quarte at all it would hurt him in the later rounds yes it would but that was a
29:00good right
29:00hand by Tiger Jones he's not throwing many punches but he's trying to make everything that he throw count
29:10Pat Burns said when Jones came to him four weeks ago basically all he had going for him was that
29:15he had done some road work he made Jones spar three times a day to get ready for this bout
29:21I
29:26guess that's why this must seem like a walk in the park for him some part
29:37well for sparring is one thing going in against an Ike Quarte is yet another but you can see Jones's
29:44confidence building as he starts to use some head movement to try to get away from Quarte's constant
29:50assault and he's backing Quarte up now something he couldn't conceivably have done in round one not
29:57because Ike was much too strong much too big for him I'll tell you about 10 minutes ago I would
30:03have
30:03been sure by now we would have been up on our feet talking about the upcoming fight between Jones and
30:10Barrera
30:13double right hand by Quarte another combination from Quarte backs Tiger Jones up and Jones grins as he
30:23takes more brutal punishment to end round four check him out and there's Junior Jones Brooklyn product
30:31one-time rising superstar in the sport had his career progress halted in 1994 when he lost two out of
30:38three fights suddenly the John Michael Johnson and Darryl Pinckney revived his star status with last ball's win over
30:44Barrera and can solidify it again with a victory in the rematch tonight Dr. Flip Lomansky you're not breaking
30:51him down has been in Jones corner studying him very carefully last 10 seconds to understand you want to
30:58knock this guy out right that's what you've been saying you've got to chop that tree down son you're
31:02doing good getting inside but you're not throwing any punches once you get there listen if you work the
31:07body I promise you it's gonna open up that overhand right but you gotta work hard to the body bring
31:12the
31:12uppercut two shots it'll open up the head another interesting thing you have to look at with Tiger
31:21Jones here is that he's out to prove a point tonight he's out to also prove to his former trainer
31:26that
31:26just because you start spending your time with Mike Tyson doesn't mean that you lost or that you're gaining a
31:32better fighter he wants to show his former trainer that he is just a good of an opponent I mean
31:37a champion
31:37as in the other guy indeed his manager acknowledged that they would be sending a paycheck to Rich Diacchetti
31:44but they don't feel all that good about it
31:46Harold how do you have it scored through four Jim an easy fight to score four rounds to nothing 40
31:50to 34 I could say he
31:52gets two extra points for the two knockdowns around one Jim I got to talk about three important things
31:56number one the second knockdown of the first round occurred after the 10 second warning so in other words
32:01Ralph Tiger Jones was on the floor after three minutes had transpired in Nevada they don't ring the
32:06bell at three minutes they ring the bell when the fighter gets up you follow second point he I
32:11quote take doesn't step with the punch and I think Roy can comment on that he throws the jab he
32:16doesn't
32:16step with it third thing the weight of Ike Quartey Larry commented on it it was rampant that the way
32:22in that
32:22he was 150 all week more left right combinations by Quartey Jones in more trouble than ever before
32:28and Joe Cortez is going to stop it
32:31and he won't come back from that
32:32that's it my man
32:33that's it that's it right there
32:34those last two left right combinations were as perfect as perfect can be
32:38let me show you how you tell a good fighter he knew what Tiger was doing he let Tiger last
32:42his four rounds to see that four rounds wasn't going to help
32:45he waited till the four rounds was over he came out this fifth round immediately started on Tiger's fighting
32:50that's how you wear a fighter down and take him out
32:53well that was the textbook case of finishing his man by Ike Quartey in the fifth round
33:02and all credit to Tiger Jones for the brave effort but in reality he didn't have the goods to match
33:10up against a fighter like Ike Quartey
33:11no way plus he was too small
33:18so Quartey makes his statement six days after Whitaker De La Hoya the big fight in the welterweight division
33:25and here's Joe Cortez as he humanely called a halt to it
33:30there's the first left right combination there's the second and all four of those punches landed
33:36beautiful punches by Ike that was a little up cut that really hurt Tiger Jones
33:42now what about Harold Letterman's mild criticism that Quartey doesn't step in behind his punch
33:47well he's never been a guy to commit much to his jab he inches close to the guy with his
33:52feet first
33:52then when he's in range he fires the jab therefore he will not shoot the jab when he's out of
33:57range
33:58so there's no need for him to step when he does shoot the jab
34:00you like it yeah I like it if it works I'll love it
34:04let's get the official particulars on Quartey's KO victory from Michael Buffer
34:10ladies and gentlemen referee Joe Cortez has to step in and call a halt to the bout
34:17the official time one minute eight seconds of round number five
34:22the winner by TKO victory and still the undefeated WBA welterweight champion of the world
34:38all three judges had it at 40 to 34 just the same as Harold Letterman
34:45Fred Asifo getting into position now to translate the interview as Larry Merchant gets ready to go with Ike Corte
34:55small crowd here tonight in the ballroom at the Las Vegas Hilton
34:59another boxing telecast taking place in town tomorrow night
35:02Larry Merchant ready with Ike Corte right now Larry
35:05all right thank you Jim congratulations
35:08Ike was he a little bit tougher to chop down than you thought he would be
35:20he wasn't tough at all I knew what he was going to do so I was ready for him
35:24all right let's talk about your future Ike who would you like to fight among the top welterweights next and
35:31why
35:31I want to fight in De La Hoya anytime
35:40the last time we spoke to you said you wanted to fight De La Hoya and Whitaker on the same
35:45night so now it's just De La Hoya
35:48do you think that the top welterweights including Felix Trinidad will give you an opportunity to find out who the
35:55best welterweight in the world is
36:12that's all
36:15All I want to do is fight De La Hoya because they're calling his name all over the place
36:19and I just want to silence him.
36:20That's all.
36:22What will you do until that time?
36:24How often will you fight until somebody is almost forced to give you the opportunity
36:30to show how good you are?
36:32I don't know if you have the opportunity to fight De La Hoya anymore.
36:42We're going to keep fighting in the U.S. so the public gets to know about us and then
36:46the public is going to demand the fight.
36:48Thank you very much, Ike Quartey, and I think the public will get to know him a little better
36:53as time goes on.
36:55Jim?
36:56Well, here was another step tonight and let's take a quick look back at what happened
37:00in the fight.
37:01It was a showcase for Quartey's power shots.
37:04There was the first knockdown in round number one, there was the second knockdown in round
37:09number one.
37:10Hard to differentiate between the power in the left hand and the right hand.
37:13He throws punches well from both sides.
37:16His punches are short and economical.
37:18His footwork is economical.
37:19He keeps a solid power base.
37:22He landed three quarters of his power shots in the fight.
37:24What a shock.
37:25He wants to fight De La Hoya.
37:26What a shock.
37:27He wants to fight Oscar.
37:29Why would anyone want to fight Oscar?
37:31Well, that's where the money is and obviously such a bout wouldn't take place until probably
37:36next year at the earliest.
37:39How would De La Hoya stand up to the power shots of Ike Quartey?
37:43De La Hoya would stand up to the power shots because De La Hoya is a good champion.
37:46I can take nothing from him.
37:47He is a good fighter.
37:48He's an excellent fighter.
37:49It would be more difficult for Ike Quartey to hit De La Hoya than it's been for him to
37:53hit his previous opponents.
37:54So that would make for a very good matchup.
37:57However, if the fight went into the later rounds, I know for a fact that right now,
38:01Bazooka is definitely the stronger of the two fighters.
38:04All right.
38:04Well, maybe it'll take place.
38:06Maybe it won't.
38:06Larry Merchant, your final comments on Ike Quartey's showcase KO victory.
38:11It was just a victory over a journeyman, a good workout for Ike Quartey.
38:18He'll keep active.
38:19He's well-liked all over the world.
38:22This guy has a future.
38:24He may be forced to fight bigger guys, may have to fight some junior middleweights, and
38:30he's obviously strong enough to move up to that class, even perhaps to some of the middleweights
38:36around.
38:37Sooner or later, he'll get his shot.
38:39All right.
38:40Let's turn our attention to the main event, because like most boxing fans, I've got a
38:44Jones to see it.
38:45I've got a Jones to talk about Roy.
38:46Roy.
38:47Roy.
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