By Mike Sempervive

 

Fighting again in his home-base of Salisbury, Maryland, it took fast-rising middleweight prospect Fernando Guerrero less than two rounds to dust off Brian Norman.

The Dominican-born southpaw, already the focus of nationally televised fights on ShoBox and ESPN2, dropped Norman with a left-right combo in the second round, and finished off the Atlanta-based boxer with another combo. Despite rising at the count of nine, referee Kenny Chevalier waved off the fight at 2:35 of round two.

Guerrero, now 14 (12)-0, lost the first round as he was cautiously feeling out Norman, 17 (5)-9 (4), who took the round by scoring to the body and being more active. Norman - despite losing three of his last five coming in - was expected to be a step-up in competition for the 2007 U.S. amateur champion, as he had taken Jean Pascal the full ten rounds before losing a lopsided decision. Tonight, Pascal was crowned the WBC 175-pound champion with a decision win over Adrian Diaconu at the Bell Centre in Montreal.

It was the second straight bout for the 22-year old Guerrero at the Wicomico Civic Center (better known to longtime wrestling fans as the Salisbury Youth & Civic Center - which played a role in the 1980's during the border war between Vince McMahon's WWF and Jim Crockett's northern-expanding Mid-Atlantic Championship events). The fight was shown via streaming on prizefighttv.com, and featured ShoBox commentator (and former Weston magazine writer/editor) Steve Farhood as an announcer. The crowd was quite vocal for the main event, despite being much smaller than previous sell-out fights at the building. The lack of television coming to the small market, as well as a family night event at the popular Delmarva Shorebirds (a minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles), hampered the attendance.

Also on the show, the last man to beat Guerrero (at the Olympic trials), Akron Ohio-native Shawn Porter knocked down Brandon Wooten three times in 129 seconds to run his record to 9-0, with 7 knockouts, in 17 rounds fought. Fernando's older brother, cruiserweight Alexis "Alex" Guerrero won his debut fight with a majority decision (39-37, twice, 38-38) over Rodricka Ray of Jackson, Tennesee. And super middleweight prospect Farah Ennis of Philadelphia ran his record to 11 (5)-0 with a eight-round unanimus decision over Bobby Jordan, now 6 (2)-1 (0), of Norfolk, Virginia. Largo, Maryland super middleweight prospect Dominic "The Blade" Wade ran his record to 3 (3)-0 by starching an overmatched Anthony Cannon, who has lost his last nine straight, and fell to 4 (1)-13 (8).

**********%0D%0AMike Sempervive