Sadam Ali Arrives at Brace for Impact

March 13th, 2010

Joe Roche

The 2008 U.S. Olympic boxing team failed in Shanghai. There is really no way to sugar coat their performance – or lack of performance – so I won’t even try. Since the Games many of the ’08 Olympians have entered the professional ranks and now two plus years after the disappointment in Shanghai some of their stars are beginning to shine bright.

Six months ago I would’ve told you that the most promising member of the ’08 team was Demetrius Andrade (9-0, 7 KO) who has the speed and power to be a formidable talent in the professional ranks. As recently as last October I started to feel as if Danny O’Connor (10-0, 3 KO) an alternate on the ’08 team who Pete Fernandez called “a special talent” may have surpassed Andrade as the brightest star in the group. However on Saturday night March 12th at the Fox Den in Foxwoods Resort & Casino “The World Kid” Sadam Ali (5-0, 3 KO) announced that he was ready to be considered as the best pro prospect out of the ’08 bunch.

“The World Kid” who was the first Arab American boxer to represent the United States at the Olympic Games used sharp, stinging jabs to keep his opponent Jose Duran at bay in the first two rounds and then unleashed a furious right, left hook combination in the third round that sent Duran down and out for the count. The uppercut that landed square on the chin of Duran caused the Mexican fighter’s legs to lock up and his head snapped back – the type of knockout that would be replayed on a loop had this fight been shown on ESPN and causing one commenter to note that referee Joe Lupino could’ve counted to one hundred and Duran wouldn’t have been able to respond.

Ali who began boxing when he was eight years old (he’s now 21) trains in Coney Island, NY though he is in the process of opening his own gym in Brooklyn admits that it has taken him awhile to adjust to the professional ranks. “Amateur boxing is not the same as pros, the Olympics score different – they don’t score jabs, they don’t score hooks, no body shots, only straight hard shots so that confused me a bit. The experience, just being there [in Shanghai] was awesome.” The most striking thing about his victory on Friday night was the power Ali showed in knocking out Duran. Ali admitted after the fight to me that his power has increased with each fight – noting that he attributes most of that progression to the fact that he’s getting older and his body is getting stronger as he ages. If that’s the case and we’re going to see a stronger Sadam Ali in the future the ’08 Olympic class may have its prized pupil in “The World Kid” who already has blinding speed and if he adds the type of power that we saw on Friday night he’ll be a nightmare for opponents.

In the Main Event from Foxwoods Tony “TNT” Grano (17-1-1, 13 KO) avenged his lone career loss with a 10 round unanimous decision victory [98-91, 97-92, 97-92] over Mark “Oak Tree” Brown to become the WBF All American heavyweight champion. Grano dominated the fight for the first nine rounds using his jab, and some solid body work against Brown who seemed to have no interest in actually boxing. Brown was much more interested in mugging Grano, trying to wear him down with dirty boxing tactics, and playing the heel roll with the crowd (and officials) never letting a break go without playing to the crowd and stirring up emotions in the Fox Den. Grano for his part did a good job of not getting drawn into the tactics of Brown for much of the fight, focusing instead of doing his work and piling up enough points so that he could easily coast to a victory. Things seemed to be going according to plan until the 10th round began and Brown connected with a huge overhand right haymaker that sent Grano to the mat and almost out of the ring.

Suddenly the crowd was having flashbacks of the pairs first encounter which saw Grano knock Brown down twice in the fight but still lose when he got gassed in the eighth and final round and was knocked out by “Oak Tree.” This time Grano was able to get to his feet, duck some incoming bombs from Brown and get to the final bell. With the victory Grano puts a difficult loss behind him and can now move forward to what will likely be a North American trinket title showdown in the near future with one of the other young up and coming American heavyweights.

Also in the co-feature Mike “Mike” Oliver (23-2, 8 KO) the fighter so nice they named him twice scored a rare third round knockout victory over former two time world champion Kermin Guardia (37-12, 21 KO). It was the first time Oliver had scored a knockout in four years (he had a TKO win in 2006) and the first time he had stopped a fighter by straight KO as a professional. Oliver’s trainer John Scully told me after the fight that while Oliver doesn’t have the KO numbers he still hits very hard for a guy his size. Scully told me that he’s sparred with Oliver before and he has to remind Oliver not to unload on him (presumably because Scully is getting older – just kidding Iceman). The victory for Oliver is a step towards resurrecting his career – a career that seemed to be over after back to back third round TKO losses in 2008 and the Hartford, CT super bantamweight seemed excited at getting back into the ring as soon as possible – a passion re-discovered at Foxwoods.

Full Results for “Brace for Impact”
Tony Grano UD Mark Brown [98-91, 97-92, 97-92]
Mike Oliver KO3 Kermin Guardia
David Bauza MD Erix Quinteros [38-38, 39-37, 40-36]
Sadam Ali KO3 Jose Duran
Manny Lopes DRAW Greg McCoy
Joe Smith Jr. TKO1 Carlos Adams
Edwin Soto TKO2 Joey Ortega