Laurel, MD junior welterweight Ikem "The Warrior" Orji won a four-round unanimous decision over Juan Oscar Vasquez of Newark, DE at the "Battle at the Beach" card at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, DE.
Here's how my Fightnews.com colleague Rick Scharmberg saw the bout from ringside:
Orji, a southpaw, and Vasquez are both speedsters, and they engaged in a chessmatch for the first three rounds. Vasquez (1-1) narrowly took the opener with several right-left combinations, as Orji (3-0, one KO) studied him.
The second and third rounds were also very close, as Orji used his jab, and Vasquez worked his straight right. Action finally heated up in the final round with several heated exchanges. Orji sealed his victory by winning this round landing several straight left hands that Vasquez had no answer for.
The final scores were 40-36 and 39-37 for Orji, and 38-38. Fightnews also saw it even at 38-38.
What makes Orji's record interesting is that after he won his pro debut by second-round TKO on November 9 at Rosecroft Raceway in Fort Washington, MD, he has won his last two bouts by close decision (one split and one majority) on the road, in other boxers's hometowns. Orji's last bout was a split-decision against the debuting Juan Gonzalez of Chicago, IL in nearby Villa Park, IL on April 11.
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4 comments:
Well that's an auspicious beginning to the summer! Congrats Warrior!
CONGRADS OG
MO BETTER
For the record "OGI's" wins on the road may look close on paper, but being at both of those fights, they were not that close. OGI's opponents benefited from some local scoring.
1. In Chicago, OGI was forced to fight on an extremely slow ring, which prevented him from being as slick as usual. As a result he had to brawl his way through that fight with a tough kid out there. And OGI was literally in this kids back yard in suburban Chicago.
2. In Delaware, OGI would have stopped the kid in the fourth round if there had been about ten more seconds in the match. The kid basically sat down on the ropes after being overwhelmed by OGI, he only survived the round because time ran out.
3. OGI must have impressed the folks in Delaware because the matchmaker for that event offered OGI a fight on the Kelly Pavlik undercard 6/7/08 in Atlantic City.
James Wilkins, Esquire
JAW LAW, LLC
Advisor to Ikemefuna Orji
I forgot to mention a couple of things. OGI also moved up in weight for the fight in Delaware, he fought at 141 (his opponent weighed 142). OGI walks around at the weight, he really should be fighting at 130 or 135. But, it was a good opponent for us and we moved up in weight for this fight. The kid in Delaware, however, was "fussing" about making 142 and as a result, we had one weeks notice the fight was going to take place and OGI was only able to get very limited sparring in before the bout.
Under ideal conditions, OGI stops the kid in Delaware in one round.
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