Youngstown’s Boone falters against Vera’s aggressiveness
By JOHN KOVACH
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
YOUNGSTOWN — It was another learning experience for Darnell Boone and his disappointing tale of the elusive title that got away.
And it was another step up the ladder for unbeaten Brian Vera, who made his first successful title defense in a 10-round super middleweight bout.
Vera’s aggressive and unrelenting offensive attack with combinations enabled him to emerge with a unanimous decision over Boone in the co-feature of the Friday Night Fights card at the Chevrolet Centre.
The dominating win for Vera (14-0) by judges’ decisions of 97-92, 97-92 and 95-94, allowed him to retain his International Boxing Association championship and set the stage for a possible bout against unbeaten Joe Greene (15-0).
Meanwhile, Boone (14-10-2, 5 KOs), a 1996 graduate of Wilson High who has been in the ring for 31⁄2 years and is trained by Jack Loew, will try to learn from the mistakes he made against Vera, mainly that he had no solution to Vera’s continuous attacks except for counter punching and long range swings.
And also that when Boone did connect against Vera, which was often, he was unable to sustain his attacks and was forced to go on the defense because of Vera’s aggressiveness.
Boone has no answer
“I’m still learning on the job,” said Boone, who had bloodied lips. “I have been boxing only four years. We just have to go back to the drawing board.”
Boone had lost some close fights on the road of late, and was hoping for a win at home, but had no answer to the attacking Vera.
Boone also complained that Vera was hitting him behind the head.
“He hit me in the back of my head and he did it the whole fight and that took a toll from me. I was dizzy a couple of times. He was warned but did it [anyway].”
But it was Vera’s one-twos that wore down Boone and also the Texan’s fierce body punches in the eighth round that almost finished off the Youngstown fighter, who became defenseless during one of those attacks.
But Boone contended, “He was hitting me in the body with his elbows. I was blocking his big shots. He got a few in but nothing to stop me.”
But, admitted Boone, “He’s a good fighter. I’m not taking anything away from him. I did my best.”
Vera used style effectively
Vera said attacking the opponent is his style of boxing, and that he tried to be as aggressive as possible against Boone without going overboard.
“That’s my style: controlled aggression,” said Vera. “Sometimes [I] tend to get a little wild. So I wanted to be more controlled.”
Regarding his punishing body shots to Boone, “I wanted to slow him down, so I went to the body.”
Vera said that he wanted to avoid a decision and wanted to get a TKO.
“I was concerned about the judges. I was trying to finish the fight in the last round. But I was impressed by the judges’ decision.”
Regarding Boone’s accusation that Vera was hitting behind the head, the Texan countered that, “He was doing similar things. And actually what happened was I was taking short shots and he was bending his head in and the punches tended to land there.”
Vera attributed his win to “staying with controlled aggressive combinations,” and he knew coming in that Boone would be a good opponent. “I figured him to be tough and I was coming into his hometown,” said Vera, who is eyeing a big bout this summer.
His trainer-manager, Raul Adams, explained: “Our plan is to keep [Vera] on the field. We have a couple of names we are looking at. We may take a chance against Joe Greene. He is 15-0. We may fight him on Aug. 2 on ESPN. They said the [Greene fight] would be riding on [the outcome of] this fight.”
kovach@vindy.com