By Sammy Rozenberg
The return of Arturo Gatti (40-7, 31KOs) showered Atlantic City, News Jersey with "thunder" in his fists. A big return for Gatti, who was coming off the worst loss of his career against Floyd Mayweather, punished Danish fighter Thomas Damgaard (37-0, 28KOs) into submission and stopped him in 11 rounds to hand the Danish fighter his first loss.
The bout started slow as both men jabbed. Gatti began to unload with big punches, but ran into some problems when halfway through the bout he hurt his right hand. Damgaard kept a lot of pressure on Gatti and stayed on top of him. The problem with staying close to Gatti is keeping himself in the heart of the fire.
Gatti was faster, better conditioned and stronger with his punches. Damgaard was busted up badly down the stretch, bleeding from the top of his head, his nose and his mouth.
The end came when Damgaard was being beaten to a pulp in the 11th round. The referee Lindsey Page saved Damgaard from further punishment as Gatti was unloading some big punches.
There are three ways to move in the heavyweight division, the easier of the three is a bout with WBC welterweight champion Carlos Baldomir. The upset kid in Baldomir is not getting any younger, at 34-years of age, and is not the most technically sound champion within the division. The more harder routes is either face a monster like Antonio Margarito or wait for the winner of the April 8 Floyd Mayweather vs. Zab Judah showdown.
Gatti made it very apparent after the fight that Baldomir was the guy he wanted.
"I want to fight Carlos Baldomir, I think me and him would make a great fight with our styles and I'm sure he will give me the fight." said Gatti
When sizing up the welterweights, Gatti stands a much better chance of beating Baldomir than Margarito, Judah or Mayweather. Baldomir will be standing right in front of Gatti to trade punches and unlike Mayweather, Gatti would be the faster man in the ring. Baldomir often telagraphs his punches and Gatti is very good counter puncher. It will be interesting to see if Baldomir will be able to take Gatti's punches as easily as he was able to take Judah's punches.
Gatti appears to have carried his punches to the welterweight division, the question is whether or not he can keep his right hand healthy. He hurt the right hand tonight, said it may possibly be broken after the fight was over and hurt it several other times in the past.
Baldomir managed to upset Zab Judah, who was overlooked the tough veteran by wasting most of his training camp focused on his April showdown with Mayweather. Gatti will not overlook Baldomir, he wants to capture his third major title in his third weight division.
It appears very likely that the fight will come off this summer.
On the undercard,
Rudy Markussen (32-1, 20KOs) stopped Brock Stodden (17-10-1, 9KOs) in two rounds. Stodden went down form a body shot in the first round, was able to make it into the second where Markussen put him away.
Unbeaten featherweight prospect Jason Litzau (17-0, 15KOs) kept the streak alive by stopping Carlos Contreras (20-11-3, 13KOs) in six rounds.
BJ Flores (15-0-1, 10KOs) scored an eight round decision over Jermell Barnes (17-10, 4KOs). The scores were 80-72, 80-72, 78-74.
Malik Scott (24-0, 10KOs) walked over Kendrick Releford (13-6-1, 5KOs) with an easy eight round decision. The scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73.
Henry Crawford (9-0-1, 3KOs) decisioned Luis Santos (9-2, 6 KOs), with a technical decision verdict. Both men went down in the fight, but a clash of heads caused a bad cut on Santos, and the fight was called. The scores were 58-54, 57-56, 58-54.
Super Middleweight Wayne Johnsen (10-1, 5 KOs) won a majority four-round decision over Edward Hemphill (3-2, 1 KO). Scores were 39-39, 39-37, 38-38.
Mariusz Wach (6-0, 2KOs) beat Adele Olakanye (6-4-2, 4KOs) by way of a four round unanimous decision. The scores were 40-36, 40-36, 40-35.