07.12.07 – By Jeff Bastasini: Two-time Heavyweight challenger Monte Barrett (32-6, 18 KOs) easily destroyed a tired looking Cliff Couser (26-14-2, 14 KOs) by 2nd round TKO on Thursday night at the Paradise Theatre, in Bronx, New York. Barrett, 36, hurt Couser with a combination in the 2nd round and then preceded to unload with an unanswered storm of punches until Couser fell down into the ropes, causing the referee to stop the fight at 2:16 of the 2nd round.
In defeating Couser, Barrett avenged his defeat to Couser months earlier in which Barrett was stopped in the 2nd round on July 7th.
The win was an especially important one for Barrett because it breaks a three fight losing streak stretching back to his loss to his loss to Hasim Rahman in 2005, and during this time Barrett has slipped down in the boxing rankings.
In the first round, Couser landed a few big hooks that drove Barrett back. However, Barrett controlled the round with his fast hands and excellent footwork. By the end of the round, Barrett was repeatedly hitting Couser with powerful right hands and left hooks. For his part, Couser looked tired as if he had thrown himself out in the exertion of throwing a handful of punches. In the 2nd round, Couser missed badly on several attempts to punch Barrett, and only was successful in hitting him once during the round. Barrett started in where he left off, using his speed to hit the slower Couser with fast shots. Barrett hurt Couser with a combination, and then went all out to finish him off with non-stop punches for almost a minute until Couser fell into the ropes, leading to the referee stopping the bout at 2:16 of the 2nd round.
In the other action on the night, light middleweight Yuri Foreman (24-0, 8 KOs) defeated Andrey Tsurkan by split decision in a mostly dull fight which saw Foreman constantly moving. The scores were 96-94, 96-94, and 94-96. Foreman, a fighter with little power, used a lot of side to side movement to befuddle Tsurkan and squeeze out the decision. It wasn’t pretty, however, and many in the crowd booed Foreman for his style of fighting, as it seemed at times that he was almost running from Tsurkan and reluctant to fight.
Most of the action in the fight was initiated by Tsurkan, who came forward constantly hitting Foreman with hard shots. Most of the early rounds appeared to have won by Tsurkan, who successful at cornering the fleeing Foreman in the early going. However, as the fight progressed, Tsurkan slowed down, seeming exhausted from having to chase down Foreman round after round and allowing him to take control.
Still, Foreman mostly threw jabs and wasn’t impressive in winning any of the later rounds due to his nonstop circling and side to side movement. Both fighter’s eyes were badly swollen by the end of the 10-round fight.