21.12.07 – By Ron Hansen: In a night of 1st round knockouts, 6’8″ heavyweight Tye Fields (39-1, 35 KOs) made an impressive showing in stopping Chris Koval (24-4, 18 KOs) in the first minute of the 1st round on Thursday night at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fields, 32, not a particularly fast or powerful puncher, used his size and heavy pressure to take out out Koval in 43 seconds of the 1st round, dropping him twice in the process.
Fields knocked Koval down moments into the fight after connecting with a right hand. Koval seemed unhurt after the knockdown but Fields immediately pounced on him with a couple of sweeping left hands and then finished him with a left to the head, dropping Koval to the canvas where he was counted out by referee Toby Gibson.
Hopefully, Fields follows this victory up by taking on a tougher opponent in the future because he’s not getting any younger at 32 years-old and can’t afford to waste too much more time fighting exclusively C-level fighters. At some point, Fields is going to have to step it up a level or risk wasting his career.
In other action, former Canadian Olympic middleweight Donnie Orr (11-0, 5 KOs) was taken the distance en route to winning a tough six-round unanimous decision over Enrique Gallegos (6-3, 1 KOs). Orr, 30, came out guns blazing in the first round and landed some terrific shots, but the knockout didn’t come due to the strong chin and excellent ring skills of Gallegos. In the later rounds of the fight, Gallegos gamely made a fight of it, swelling up Orr’s left eye in the process. In the end, however, Orr’s power was the difference as he won by the scores 60-54, 59-55 and 59-55.
Unbeaten junior middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan (17-0, 12 KOs), a former 2004 Olympian, overwhelmed Don Wallace (9-3, 3 KOs) in the 1st round, stopping him with a pulverizing right hand. Martirosyan, 21, one of the best legitimate junior middleweight prospects in the division, hurt Wallace with a crushing right hand in the opening seconds of the fight, and had him holding on to survive.
Shortly thereafter, Martirosyan landed a several right hands and dropped Wallace to the canvas where he was then counted out by at 1:34 of the 1st round by referee Russell Mora.
Martirosyan showed good patience against Wallace after hurting him with his first right hand, and didn’t go right hand crazy as he’s done in some of his previous bouts. With the kind of power that Martirosyan has, he doesn’t need to rush to try and stop anyone because of his one-punch knockout power in his right hand. His left hand is almost equally as dangerous, which makes him a formidable threat to any of the top junior middleweight champions.