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Sims wins ‘March Badness’ in a minute
Youngstown boxer named Most Outstanding Fighter
By Greg Gulas
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown’s Brian Sims barely broke a sweat, Jackson Behun climbed back to the .500 mark and Isaac Chatman won by disqualification.
While Rhodell Franklin felt that he ended up on the wrong side of the judge’s decision, Akron’s David Rodriguez won Saturday’s main event at Light’s Out Management’s “March Badness” amateur boxing card, at St’s. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Banquet Center.
Rodriguez scored a split decision over Hussein Bilal of Detroit in a 152 pound scrap, one of 16 bouts on the night’s card.
“I thought that he was going to be a pressure fighter, but he turned out to be a boxer and that worked to my advantage,” Rodriguez said.
Sims needed just 50 seconds to dispose of Cody Orahoske of Cleveland at 160 pounds.
“I told myself not to give him any room to breathe and threw a simple one-two, but threw it wide,” Sims stated.
For his efforts, Sims was named the night’s outstanding fighter and was presented with the Dan Sebastiani “Courage Award.”
Action was intense at 135 pounds as Isaac Chatman of Youngstown won by disqualification over Danny Bodish of Pittsburgh.
It was a fight that Chatman felt he was winning even when the doctor stopped the fight.
“I felt great in the first round and honestly felt like I outboxed and outscored him,” Chatman said. “In the second round, we got tangled and I turned to get away from him when he hit me in the back of the neck. I didn’t expect that.”
The first fight featuring a local entry had Jackson Behun of South Side Boxing Club moving to 4-4 overall when he scored a unanimous decision over Lorain’s Shakbell Torres at 125 pounds.
“I just wanted to use my long arms and work his body the entire fight,” Behun said. “The goal was to stay aggressive and I felt like I did that.”
At 150 pounds, Nate Young of Toronto’s Bord Boxing Club won by unanimous decision over Youngstown’s R.J. Dellwick while at 140 pounds, Pittsburgh’s Brody White rode a strong first and third round to earn a unanimous decision over Bryan Torres of Cleveland.
White also evened his record at 4-4 and won for the fourth consecutive time.
“I thought that I had a strong first round, but needed to pick up the pace after he had a nice second round,” White said. “He was strong, threw a lot of punches and was an excellent opponent.”
In the first of two heavyweight clashes and an all-Cleveland pairing, it was Christian Juresic scoring a split decision over Isaiah Brewer while at 120 pounds, Caleb Wagner of Bord Boxing Club knocked down Ashtabula’s Matt Songer 14 seconds into the fight, backed him into the corner seconds later and then put him away when referee Wifredo Osario stopped the fight at 36 seconds of the round.
Pittsburgh’s Teddy Markonja scored a unanimous decision over Frank Brown of Cleveland at 130 pounds and in the night’s other heavyweight scrap, Cleveland’s Larry Wayne Davis won a split decision over Youngstown’s Rhodell Franklin.