By Paul Strauss: The American Boy beat the US Marine. How does that work? Well, tonight it was Jason “The American Boy” Litzau who scored a unanimous decision over Johnnie “The Lumberjack” Edwards. Edwards was less the lumberjack than a “botheration”, Early on he caused trouble, and was a source of unhappiness for Litzau. The American Boy had to feel he would be the hometown favorite at such a place as the Marine Corps Air Station, Jacksonville, North Carolina, but the lumberjack is an ex-marine, so closer to their heart was he. Evident from the start, Litzau didn’t appear to be his usual energetic self, as pointed out by ESPN2 announcers Brian Kenny and Teddy Atlas. He didn’t bother to establish any kind of effective jab.
Litzau was probably remembering the easy time he had of it in his last fight with the similarly short fighter named Verquan Kimbrough, who he stopped in three.. In that fight, he started throwing long hard right hands in the very first round. He wasn’t quite as aggressive in tonight’s action, but that was mainly due to the darting movement of the little twig chopper.
The problem was with the ubiquitous Edwards, who was everywhere at the same time, constantly leaping in and out and jumping side to side. He would also throw in numerous feints as well. Litzau wasn’t popping his jab because there wasn’t anything to pop it at.
When Litzau would press forward hard, Edwards would drop low and come in cockeyed, usually running into Litzau’s elbow or left shoulder. He would then try to employ rough house tactics with Litzau, clubbing him with rights to the side and back of the head. He was trying to win with brute force, and initially it appeared Litzau’s aggressiveness was seemingly backfiring on him.
Litzau failed to maintain his distance and use his superior height and reach to his advantage. He wasn’t trying to pot shot the much shorter man. In the early rounds, he allowed himself to fall in with his punches, and give Edwards a opportunity to score. It didn’t last long though, because in addition to the obvious height and reach advantage, it also was all too evident Litzau was the superior punchier too By the middle rounds of the ten round fight, Litzau started knocking Edwards a bit askew. He added to Edwards’ tiredness by putting his left forearm on the back of Edwards’ head and pushing down when Edwards made his head down bull-like charges. As a result, Edwards touched the canvas on several occasions.
Edwards proved tough though, but his stout heartedness didn’t prevent him from realizing the fight was turning in Litzau’s favor. His continued attempts to change angles became sloppy. By the fifth round, Litzau started catching him with hard shots, and Edwards started to get a bit wonky!
No namby pamby (sic) though, Edwards did manage to land a few damaging blows, drawing blood from Litzau’s nose, and also from a cut along the left eyebrow area of The American Boy. Even with the replays though, it wasn’t clear whether the cut came from punch or a head butt. First there was a right hand and then a clash of heads. It could have been from either or both.
Regardless, Litzau didn’t let the cut or nose bleed bother him, and he continued to punish Edwards. Even though Litzau was beating up on their fellow Marine, The Few Good Men appreciated his ability and sportsmanship. They knew that on several occasions Jason could have taken advantage of Edward’s vulnerability, but chose to hold up what could have been some clean shots.
It turns out he didn’t need them anyway, as the creative destruction proved to be almost exclusively his. He started timing Edwards’ inward leaps, catching him with short left hooks. He back up Edwards, and then step off to his right and transition to an almost southpaw stance. Then he would let go with more lefts, both straight punches and hooks. More than once Edwards was looking for the exit, and in fact did manage to get his body outside of the ropes. That action would necessitate a momentary halt to the action by referee Dale Frye. No knockdowns were scored however, and Edwards would avail himself of a brief respite to catch his breath and continue on with the hope of some kind of miracle to turn the tide. But, as Ken Scarborough once said, “When hope flees, all else will soon follow”, and that’s what happened to Edwards.
In the last couple of rounds, Edwards was like a bicyclist trying to maintain his balance on wobbly tires. His legs just weren’t carrying him where he wanted to go, and Litzau was landing hard shots. By this time, Litzau was so comfortably ahead that he was able to pull his attention away from Edwards long enough to try and get the Marines pumped up with cheers for the show put on by the two fighters (mainly him).
They responded and seemed to warm to the conqueror of their almost fallen comrade. Mercifully, the bell sounded to end the fight. The UD came as no surprise. Judge Cathy Leonard scored the fight 97-93. Judge Barry Linderman scored it 99-91, and Judge Davie Hudson came in between with 98-91.
It was a good night of work for Jason Litzau, and more important, he got the exposure all fighters grave to showcase their talents. The Wednesday night fight was the only show in town, so fans, fighters, trainers, promoters and such all should have been tuned into this lone show, and hopefully for Jason, he did himself some good with his bruising win over an awkward tough opponent, and the garnering of the NABF super featherweight title belt. .