By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Jarrell Miller backed up all of his trash talk Saturday night.

The huge heavyweight stopped contender Gerald Washington after eight rounds in a heavyweight fight that was part of the Adrien Broner-Mikey Garcia undercard at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The 6-feet-4, 298-pound Miller threw a lot of punches in the fight for a man his size and eventually wore down Washington. The 6-feet-6, 248-pound Washington tried to use his jab to keep Miller from landing against him, but Brooklyn’s Miller mostly walked through it and Washington wasn’t able to hurt him.

Washington was exhausted following the eighth round, which prompted his trainer, John Pullman, to tell referee Gary Rosato to stop the fight.

The victory moved Miller’s record to 19-0-1 and he produced his 17th knockout. Washington dropped to 18-2-1.

Washington was down in the fight, but unloaded a barrage of power punches to Miller’s head to start the sixth round. Many of those punches connected cleanly, but an unfazed Miller shook his head and kept coming forward.

Washington needed a breather after throwing so many punches to start the sixth round, which enabled Miller to come back in the second half of that round. With Washington backed into a neutral corner, Miller drilled Washington with his own array of power punches just before the sixth round ended.

Miller rocked Washington with a right uppercut with about 40 seconds to go in the fifth round. He followed that up with a straight right hand, but Washington wouldn’t go down.

Miller landed several solid right hands within the first minute of the fourth round, but Washington shook his head to let Miller know he wasn’t hurt.

Miller started slowly in the first round, but began unloading power shots on Washington early in the second round. He hurt Washington to the head and the body in the second round, though Washington was able to land a couple of right hands to Miller’s head before the second round ended.

Washington used his jab to keep Miller off of him for much of the first round. Washington was the busier fighter for those three minutes, but Miller finally connected with a straight right hand just before the first round ended.

Washington, 35, turned to boxing after his NFL career didn’t pan out. Five months before Miller beat him, Washington was stopped in the fifth round by WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) on February 25 in Birmingham, Alabama.

Washington, of Vellejo, California, took that fight on about four weeks’ notice because Wilder’s original opponent, Poland’s Andrzej Wawrzyk, failed a pre-fight test for performance-enhancing drugs. 

Miller, 29, hadn’t fought in nearly a year before Saturday night. In that bout, Miller needed just three rounds to stop Cameroon’s Fred Kassi (18-6-1, 10 KOs) on August 19 in Rochester, New York.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.