Fight Highlights – July 25th 2009 – St. Paul Armory
By: Laura Zink
Photographs By: SnapLocally.com
After seeing Seconds Out’s fight last night at the St. Paul Armory, one can see why they called it “Glory”. Whether it was for those fighting for it that night or for those seeking it in the future, the card showcased some career bests for Caleb Truax and Charles Meier, some fast and furious knockouts for Ismail Muwendo and Jeremy McLaurin, and some heated and angered challenges between Allan Litzau and Wilshaun Boxley.
For the main event, “Golden” Caleb Truax (12-0) took on Patrick Perez (25-6). Truax, coming in from a somewhat unsatisfying victory decision over Durrell Richardson last May, was looking to give his fans a more action-packed victory than his last fight. Perez, coming off a three fight losing streak, was looking to get back onto the winning road.
The first two rounds were somewhat meditative, both fighters feeling out each other with jabs, Perez trying to aggress and Truax looking to counter. The last 10 seconds of round 1 ended with a solid right hand from Truax. In round 3 the bout began to pick up steam, Truax landing 2 good lefts to set up a right hook combo, which sent Perez back a little bit. Perez answered Truax’s advance with a 1,2 combination, to which Truax answered back with some rough inside head shots. To his credit, Perez stood up to it, forcing Truax to change up strategy and start trying to go for the body. The following body shots made Perez drop his hands momentarily, so Truax could set up a head combination. Perez immediately countered with a quick and sizable right hand.
“I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to sit back and counter because he was coming pretty hard forward,” Truax commented. “He hit me with some good shots. He hit me with an overhand right that kind of buzzed me a little bit.”
In the fifth round, Truax fans got a terrible scare. For the first time in Truax’s career, he had that ghostly red-faced look of a man whose central nervous system had been rocked. The reason? Thudding body shots from Perez. It began at the beginning of the round when Perez landed a left and right hook to Truax’s body.
“That hurt him. That hurt him,” one meditative, but observant fan from the VIP tables commented.
Truax stiffened up a bit and tried to shrug it off, but Perez had already sensed the damage and began to chase Truax down, at one point getting him on the ropes, where Truax used his forearms to try and catch some of Perez’s onslaught to the body. This maneuver lowered Truax’s defense and left his head an open target. Perez slammed in some head shots, one being a particularly critical right hand which left Truax with that blanched pinkish countenance of a man who had the blood drawn from his face. Gassed and clearly in trouble, Truax was chased by Perez to the other end of the ring where again Perez attacked the body, landing more head shots toward the end of the round. Truax moved out of the barrage and spend the rest of the round trying to get his wind back by staying away from Perez.
In round 6 Truax’s fans began to rally behind him as if trying to transmit their energy into their fighter. They knew him so well, they called out to him by first name:
Ca-leb! Ca-leb! Ca-leb! Ca-leb! Ca-leb!
With all their energy behind him, Truax found a beautiful opening for a counter-attack: a right hand miss. 
Truax answered quick with head shots, moving Perez back onto the ropes where Truax unleashed his uppercuts. The crowd began to rise to their feet, thinking that this onslaught would be a classic Truax knockout, but Perez escaped forcing Truax to chase him across the ring, Truax throwing everything in his arsenal at a now tumbling, but still standing Perez. From one end of the ring to the other they fought, Truax landing right hands and a couple body shots, and Perez ending the round with a solid right hand.
Round 7 was the stuff boxing memories are made of. Both fighters came to the center of the ring with a look of exhausted endurance. They began slow, each shot had the threat of tapping the last reserves of their energy, each man knowing a good combination would end the fight. The beginning of that end began with a right hand, and then an uppercut…and ended with a left hook that never made it. Perez flopped back onto the ropes in final defeat, ref Nelson waving his hands over Perez’s head as the entire crowd, fans, friends, corners, and even a ringside worker or two, jumped to their feet, arms in the air, screaming and cheering for a man who had just won the fight of his career. Truax won the fight of his life in 1.42 minutes in the 7th round.
“I wasn’t about to let him get out of there again,” Truax commented about the finish. “I just knew that I had to take it to him.”
“I am really happy with this win because that guy just came off of a close split decision against Buddy McGirt Jr.,” Truax explained about the significance of the victory. “He lost, but I heard he should have won. And Buddy McGirt Jr. is on ESPN, HBO, Showtime…and McGirt fought him and didn’t stop him…and I knocked him out.”
And what are Turax’s current sentiments about a fight with Andy Kolle?
“I said that I want to make it happen,” Truax said. “We tentatively agreed for something in the fall, and now they are backing down on it. They seem to have other plans. But I want to make it happen. Everybody else wants to see it happen, so why not? Let’s make it happen. But I’m not gonna wait around for anybody. I’m just going to keep doing what I am doing and getting wins…and hopefully Kolle decides to put his title on the line against me.”
Another exciting toe-to-toe match was between Charles Meier (3-1) and “Church Boy” Nathan Wilkes (2-18). Wilkes, a somewhat awkward southpaw with ducking body movement, did everything that he could to make Meier fight him from the ropes. By the end of the round, Wilkes reasoning for fighting from the ropes became clear. Just as the last seconds of the round began to tic away, Wilkes leaned back on the ropes and catapulted himself at Meier with two shots a-flying. Meier dodged out of the way, leaving the punches behind to only catch air.
In round 2, Wilkes again tried to fight from the ropes, letting Meier walk him into a corner where he covered up, peeking out from between his gloves as if he were trying to set Meier up. Seeing what Wilkes had already done from the ropes thus far, Meier threw out a couple of hard shots and stepped back gingerly as Wilkes tried to turn out and counter Meier at an angle. Wilkes had to take some more punishment to the body from Meier for that move, and with 10 seconds left in the round, Meier ducked down and threw a hard right hand to the guts which dropped Wilkes to his knees, covering his groin, and claiming a low blow.
“It caught him in his stomach and it caught him at the top of his trunks,” Meier commented about the location of that punch. “I don’t think it was a low blow, but he went down. I was kind of disappointed that the referee took a point for that. That kind of pissed me off, so that was when I started taking it to him. The bell rang, so then I just picked it up in the third round.”
And pick it up he did. Meier spent a majority of that round working Wilkes from the trunk up. Not liking the punishment, Wilkes started to move off, making Meier have to chase him. But Meier kept landing, and as the onslaughts got more severe, Wilkes tried to wrestle his way out, tangling the two fighters, which I believe may have caused Wilkes to fall off balance and land on the canvas. Meier was clearly getting sick of Wilkes’ tactics and strange timing, so Meier began a clean-up operation at the end of the round with 10 seconds to go. All Wilkes could do was crouch and cover up, trying to muffle the onslaught.
“The third round came around and I just thought that it was time to pick the pace up and take it to him to the body,” Meiers said. “I landed a lot of punches to the body…and then, to the head. He kept going to the ropes, so I had to follow him to the ropes. And then I was just picking my shots to the body.”
Round 4 began with a surprise right hand from Wilkes. He continued with a wound-up bowling left which sent Meier back to the ropes where Wilkes tried to punish him with a barrage of punches.
“He just started getting real aggressive,” Meier said. “I give him a little credit because I was not ready for him to do it. I was kinda being lackadaisical on a few things, and all of a sudden he just jumped on me and threw a lot of punches, so I rolled on him like three or four times to make him miss. Then he caught me with a right hand, and then I just popped straight up…”
After escaping the advance, Meier threw a big right hand, and as he was pivoting out, Wilkes went face down, his head landing outside of the ring. Once he got up, Meier went in for the kill, landing body and head shots that wobbled Wilkes and caused him to slump back against the ropes. Ref Brunette clearly saw the damage and was going to step in, but before he could wave his hands over the head of the ailing fighter, Meier took one more shot which sent Wilkes out of the ropes and looking up into the lights on his back from the ring apron. Meier won 1.40 minutes into round 4 by KO.
“Sharp Shooter” Ismail Muwendo (3-0) fought short and wily Bradley Buckley (0-1). Round one had Buckley testing out some clowning moves on Muwendo, dropping his hands and wagging his head at the beginning of the round. Muwendo remained solemn-faced, looking through the tricks of his challenger, scanning his awkward movements for timing. When Muwendo tried to move in, Buckley clinched and lifted Muwendo bodily to stifle the advance. Raised from the canvas but still unmoved, Muwendo tested out a short combo against Buckley’s timing, an advance which Buckley slipped. Muwendo then stopped, reset, and threw another combo, this time a left, right, left which landed right on the button, dropping Buckley to the canvas on all fours. His opponent down, Muwendo walked calmly to the neutral corner. As he waited for his opponent’s count, he put his back to the post, leaned back, and let his arms hang over the ropes, resting his head on the corner post, lounging as if he were in an armchair. As he relaxed, his legs still had energy so he kicked his feet back and forth, first to the left, then right, then left. Buckley never made it up, and when the fight was called at 1.26 minutes in the first round, Muwendo lifted himself from the corner and walked over to his team for their congratulations. Finally, after they raised his hand in victory, Muwendo flashed a smile.
In other lightning fast knockouts, Jeremy “Lights Out” Mc Laurin (4-0) defeated Randy Ronchi (0-1). From the gate, Ronchi tried to move in fast, but McLaurin took his time throwing out jabs and dodging Ronchi’s punches. Once McLaurin caught Ronchi’s pace he began to put together combinations, one in particular showcasing a very powerful right hand.
After landing that, McLaurin didn’t wait much longer before he threw a jab, right hand, left hand, right hand which dropped Ronchi face first onto the canvas.
“It was unreal,” McLaurin said, “Unreal. I wish it would have gone longer, but sure enough dude is out for the count. Yeah, it was a no go.”
Bronchi couldn’t beat the count, and McLaurin won by knockout a mere 56 seconds into the first round. McLaurin, standing in the neutral corner for the count, had a surprised and somewhat eager look on his face as the ref finally called the fight, almost as if he didn’t know the force of his own strength.
“My first thought was ‘What the heck? Get back up and let’s get goin’!” McLaurin commented with a smile. “I was like, ‘What is going on?’ I actually put my hands up like ‘What is going on?’ I trained so hard for this fight. I was looking to stay in there with him, but it was “Lights Out” baby. I guess it’s “Lights Out” from here on out.”
“I actually talked to the guy after and he said that he has never been hit with a right hand like that ever before,” McLaurin continued. “I think I got hit with a jab, one jab, and it was flush but it didn’t do much. But at the same time, my hat goes off to him for getting in the ring with me.”
And between rounds, there was a different kind of rumble in the air. After McLaurin won his lighting fast victory, “American Boy” Allen Litzau stepped into the ring. He sang praises to his brother in Vegas and looked out at the crowd with a big smile on his face.
“I’m calling out Wilshaun Boxley,” he said.
I found Boxley in the crowd and immediately asked him for a reaction.
“I’m glad this muthaf*@$a called me out because you know what? To me he’s a pussy, and I can be the one to make sure that his punk ass goes out of the fights,” Boxley reacted, getting so angry that he began to call out Litzau right into my tape recorder. “I will whoop your ass! You know what I’m saying? You disrespect me dog! I’m in your hometown, but this is a Seconds Out show. This is my turf! Whenever you see Seconds Out, you know it’s my turf. I’m gonna f*@$ you up!”
So before the main event, Boxley made sure that Litzau knew that he was ready to take him on.
“This is not a game! This is not a game!” Boxley yelled into the mic.
He scanned the crowd, looking for Litzau. Litzau, in a crowd of people, was checking his cell phone, and, somewhat theatrically, but casually, looked up at Boxley in the ring. He walked over, again with a smile on his face, and faced the hot-tempered Boxley in the ring.
“Hold Wilshaun back!” a man instructed from the corner.
Tony Grygelko stepped in between them as Wilshaun yelled and lunged at Litzau.
“I’m the truth!,” Boxley exclaimed, “I’m gonna whop your butt!!! This is a grudge match! You turned the fight down four times! You know what’s up!”
Litzau stood firm a sarcastic smile plastered on his face. Boxley hurdled some more harsh words and exited the ring as Litzau took the mic and began a series of pantomime gestures to which he matched the following chorus:
“I can fight…I can dance…and I can rooooo-mance.”
So as the evening rolled to a close and the fighters who shone so brightly that night made their way back to their homes, or to an after party, or to just spend some time with their friends to bask in the glory of their most recent accomplishments, and a little more of the potential “Glory” for certain Minnesota fighters still hangs in the balance. True to the fighting spirit of the state, even as one fight draws to a close, the hopes of a new Minnesota grudge match burns brightly on the horizon.
Tags: "Golden" Caleb Truax,
Allen Litzau,
Bradley Buckley,
Charles Meier,
Glory,
Ismail Muwendo,
Jeremy McLaurin,
Nathan Wilkes,
Patrick Perez,
Randy Ronchi,
Seconds Out Promotions,
Tony Grygelko,
Willshaun Boxley
Photo Courtesy of SnapLocally.com
St. Paul, MN (April 6, 2010) - Highly touted super middleweight Caleb “Golden” Truax will meet in-state rival Phil “The Drill” Williams at the St. Paul Armory Friday, April 23, in the main event of Seconds Out Promotions’ “St. Paul Brawl”.
St. Paul, MN – Unbeaten Super Middleweight “Golden” Caleb Truax will vie for his first title Friday November 20 against former world champion Carl Daniels in the main event of Seconds Out Promotions’ “The Golden Era” live from the St. Paul Armory.
