Heavyweight Jarrell Miller (18-0-1, 16 KOs) showed that he could beat a vulnerable and much lighter Fred Kassi (18-6-1, 10 KOs) tonight in stopping him in three rounds on Friday in a one-sided contest on Showtime Boxing at the outdoor Rhinos Stadium in Rochester, New York. The 36-year-old Kassi decided he’d had enough after the third round, so he didn’t bother coming out for round four.
Officially, Kassi injured his right hand. Unofficially, he was going to get knocked out anyway had he continued to fight, because he was making it too easy for the hefty, 296.5 pound “Big Baby” Miller by playing sparring partner against the ropes and just getting worked over.
Kassi is usually a pretty clever fighter, but it looked like he hadn’t put much thought into planning strategy for this fight, because he fought the perfect fight for Miller to beat him. It was confusing to see how Kassi was making it so easy for Miller in this fight by fighting off the ropes.
The victory for Miller will likely see him pushed up the rankings a little bit despite Kassi not being a contender. Miller is currently ranked WBO #7, WBA #9, IBF #9.
Kassi might as well have stayed on his stool after the 1st round ended, because he was no longer effective from the 2nd round. That’s when he started to let Miller work him over with body shots. Kassi needed to use movement, but he didn’t bother. I guess he wasn’t feeling like it because he was a sitting duck by Miller. It’s not that Miller was looking great. It was a case of Kassi just being so poor. He was no better than the 3rd tier fighters that Miller had padded his resume with leading up to this fight.
The hand injury that Kassi suffered saved him from getting taken out in the traditional sense had the fight gone into the 4th. Kassi would have likely been knocked out with a hard body shot sooner or later with the way he was fighting.
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Other boxing action on tonight’s card:
Mason Menard TKO 9 Bahodir “Baha” Mamadjonov
Bakhtiyar Eyubov SD 10 Karim Mayfield
Antonio Nieves draw 10 and Alejandro Santiago
