Paul-John Ramos
04.10 Dover, Delaware - 23-year-old Kassim Ouma may not have arrived at stardom quite yet, but there is always something to be learned from brush-up fights such as his first USBA Junior Middleweight Title defense against Darrell Woods on Friday evening.
What the boxing world saw reaffirmed at Dover Downs Casino is that Ouma (17-1-1, 12 KOs) will never back down, will rarely drop his guard, and is a complete handful for fighters more experienced and physically larger than himself. Ouma's minor belt defense was a one-sided pummeling of Woods (20-7, 15 KOs), a fighter whose resume is short on both quality and activity. But this does not at all take away from the strong performance, a workmanlike effort in which Ouma threw over 1,300 punches before referee Rudy Battle stopped the action at 25 seconds of round eleven.
Neither fighter was ever in serious trouble, but Woods underwent a steady barrage of punches that would have eventually knocked other fighters down. The compact Ouma, 160, was much too quick with his feet and hands for the wiry Woods, 160, most often landing uppercuts and right hooks that broke through Woods' screen. Woods tried continuously to fend Ouma off with his long jab, only to cover up and hide from his opponent's downpour of power shots. There were several stretches in which viewers could not see the face of Woods, kept behind his gloves in safety. It was unlikely that Woods, St. Petersburg, Florida, would have gone down in the final two rounds with his iron chin, but Ouma, West Palm Beach, Florida via Uganda, proved of a completely different class at a much younger age, albeit without getting a KO.
