Heavyweight contender Terrel Jamal Woods has a bad pro record at 28-50-9(28), yet the 32 year old from Forrest City, Arkansas really is a bad man in the ring. Arguably the best/baddest fighter out there today with a losing record, Woods is way better than his pro numbers suggest is the case. Last night in Pasadena, Texas, Woods again showed he is not a fighter to ever underestimate or look past. Taking on the unbeaten Rolando Soto, 8-0(3) coming in, Woods tore into the betting favourite and got himself a third-round corner retirement win.
Woods dropped Soto heavily with a right hand in round-two and though Soto got up, he was badly hurt and he was soon pulled out of the fight by the ringside doctor. The official time was :10 seconds into the third-round. Once again, Woods has picked up a good win. Staying busy is the key, Woods says (he boxed six times last year and he has now had two fights this year and is already looking at fighting again, on May 21, in New York) and Woods is always in shape.
Those 50 losses don’t look at all pretty on Woods’ record, yet plenty of those defeats were actually robberies, while some of the losses came as a result of Woods taking the fight on almost ludicrously short-notice. When kindly taking the time to speak with this writer a few months back, Woods said that of his 50 official losses, only ten of them are legit, the rest being bad decisions against him, often coming on the other guy’s backyard.
Rarely stopped, Woods is proud of the fact that he has never been dropped – “no, sir, not once in my career.” Woods has a ton of experience, he knows plenty of tricks, he can box, he can take a punch and he can crack. Woe betide any heavyweight who looks at Woods’ record and judges him on it before facing him.
Woods is living proof of the fact that a nice, shiny, impressive-looking unbeaten record might not mean all that much when the bell rings. Let’s see how many more upsets Woods can score before his quite amazing career is over. And wouldn’t it be quite the story if Woods managed to win himself a title of some kind!
