Kaspari's IBF title hopes dashed by American Austin
Kaspari's IBF title hopes dashed by American Austin
LAS VEGAS (Reuters): American Tim Austin retained his International Boxing Federation bantamweight title on Saturday when referee Mills Lane stopped the scheduled 12-round bout with Adrian Kaspari of Indonesia in the third round.
Playing the undercard to the World Boxing Association junior middleweight championship bout, Austin floored Kaspari at 1:57 of the third with a left to the head of the Indonesian. Referee Lane waved the fight over after reaching only a count of six.
Kaspari landed one solid right early in the third, which only served to infuriate the southpaw Austin, who then unleashed his closing barrage.
"He was fast, faster than I thought," said Kaspari, who was making his first American trip. "He was strong too, too strong for me tonight."
Austin, 27, improved to 18-0-1, 17 of his victories coming inside the distance. Kaspari, 26, slipped to 9-1.
The American captured the IBF crown in spectacular fashion when, despite a broken jaw, he knocked out then-unbeaten Mbulelo Botile of South Africa. In his first title defense two months ago, Austin stopped an overmatched Paul Lloyd of Britain in the second round.
Later in the evening, WBA junior middleweight champion Laurent Boudouani of France came on strong in the final two rounds to pull out a controversial split decision victory over Guillermo Jones of Panama.
Jones dominated the first half of the bout, landing accurate jabs and combinations seemingly at will as he appeared to build a sizable lead.
But two of the three judges apparently saw the fight differently from most of the crowd.
Jerry Roth scored the bout 116-112, and Melchiore Taylor had it 115-113 for the champion, while Oscar Perez had Jones winning easily, 117-111.
"This indeed was a great fight, you can't take that away from them, even though the judges' saw it contrary to what everyone else saw it to be," said promoter Don King.
"I didn't lose this fight," insisted Jones. "I controlled the fight.
"I don't know what happened," he said of the scoring.
Boudouani turned aggressor midway through the bout, getting inside the 6-foot-4 (1.93 m) Jones to work the body effectively.
Jones battled back in the 10th, displaying the same tenacity he had over the first several rounds.
But over the last half of the 11th, the champion began to press the action and the 12th round saw a desperate Boudouani attempt to land an assortment of power punches that may have carried the day for him.