By Ronnie Nathanielsz

Former five-time world champion Marco Antonio Barrera scored a 4th round TKO in a terrible mismatch against Sammy Ventura at the  Sichuan stadium in Chengdu , China , Friday night.

In a fight telecast “live” on the cable channel Solar Sports, respected television commentator Col. Bob Sheridan described the bout as “a stay busy fight” for Barrera and noted that the Mexican legend was “pulling his punches” in what looked more like a sparring session than an actual bout scheduled for ten rounds.

Barrera kept merely tapping Ventura with his punches in the opening round and the crowd was obviously not too pleased.

Towards the end of round two Barrera connected with his first hard punch and then threw some big body shots early in the third and staggered Ventura with a left hook to the head.

It was clear that Barrera could take Ventura out anytime he pleased and with a a hard shot to the body sent Ventura down for the first time in round three. Ventura got up at the count of four but was given a standing eight-count by referee Kenny Bayless and when Barrera dropped the badly overmatched Ventura for the second time with a flurry of punches, Bayless decided to call a halt.

The official time of the TKO was 1:01 of round four.

With the insignificant win Barrera who is aiming for a fourth world title improved to 64-6 with 43 knockouts while Ventura who suffered his eighth stoppage inside four rounds in his last eleven fights fell to 25-20 with 20 knockouts.

When insidesports.ph questioned the approval of such an obvious mismatch the WBC, noting the background of Ventura said in an email response that it "disclaims any responsibility regarding the fight" and noted that it was a Don King promotion and the WBC "had nothing to do with the Barrera-Ventura fight." 

Two farcical heavyweight bouts added to a terrible mismatch featuring Marco Antonio Barrera.

In what was described as a “mostly dreadful heavyweight eliminator” 38 year old Jameel McCline who stands 6’6” and weighed in at 272 pounds scored a twelve round unanimous decision over the smaller, 28 year old Mike Mollo who stood 6’1” and weighed 227 pounds.

All three judges scored the fight for McCline. Nicolas Hidalgo had McLine the winner 116-112, Takeaki Kanaya 116-111 and Brian Mcahon 116-112.

Both fighters plodded around the ring and kept holding with only occasional exchanges in a fight card telecast “live” by Solar Sports on its cable channel in the Philippines.

Mollo carried the fight in the early rounds who led on the scorecards of two of the three judges at the end of the fourth round.

McCline hurt Mollo in round six with a couple of big shots and Mollo was clearly in trouble as he staggered to his corner at the end of the round.

Mollo began to tire in round eleven when he connected with a low blow which gave McCline a welcome rest. When the bout resumed McCline went after Mollo and staggered him on a couple of occasions but couldn’t put him away and had to eventually settle for a unanimous points decision.  

In the main event Poland’s Andrew Golota was decked in the first few seconds of his heavyweight battle with Ray Austin who rushed at the Pole the moment the bell sounded and caught him by surprise.

What was a bigger surprise was when Austin dropped Golota with a solid left hook a few moments later but referee Michael Griffin  ruled it a slip not a knockdown, promoting respected TV commentator Col. Bob Sheridan to remark “the referee has done some strange things.”

Golota was hammered from one end of the ring to another and appeared to have hurt his left arm which he hung by his side while trying to throw wild rights. He was in trouble when the bell ended round one and sat on his stool and didn’t come out for the second round as the ring physician examined his left arm.

Austin was declared the winner after Golota retired at the end of round one. He improved his record to 26-4-4, with 17 knockouts while Golota dropped to 41-7-1 with 33 knockouts.