Walters Stops Norwood, Kolle Outworks Reid
Report By Laura Zink Photos By Jesse Kelley

 

In what may very well be the Twin Ports final Zach “Jungle Boy” Walters fight card, fans, friends, and fighters truly had a fight night to remember. From grudge matches, to a blood and guts war, to an international heavyweight debut, to two title matches, the spectrum of events boxing fans want to see were showcased in full tilt.

The first bout was between West Duluth’s own, welterweight RJ Laase (2-0 (1KO)) and Grand Fork’s Native American fighter Mike Davis (0-4). Laase entered the ring with West Duluth entourage in tow, a few of his hip hop buddies rhyming live to an original song made just for Laase’s ring entrance. Entrances aside, RJ stayed true to his West Duluth stock with his fight antics as well, spending his time in the ring looking to land punishing gut shots and during his deliberations, trying to psyche out Davis by clowning him. Davis showed little tolerance for Laase’s taunts and took a moment in round 1 to respond with a taunt of his own, flashing a gesture which revealed Davis’ sentiment that Laase’s taunts were little more than self-pleasuring. Davis didn’t only establish distance between Laase and he with counter taunts, he also established range with jabs, and somewhat untraditionally, even used 1, 2 combinations as range-finders. Laase began to work the ring, looking for body openings which Davis answered with a rough, counter-brawling style. Most of the mid-rounds were fought at a distance, the fighters circling each other, Laase tossing taunts, feints, and jabs on his mission to get in a fat right hand or jutting body shot on Davis, and Davis trying to keep Laase off with jabs and the occasional looping smack to the ear. Some of the range-making ignited an inside exchange, but many were short-lived, either resulting in a clinch or a step back after a few punishing shots were fired. In round 3 Laase got Davis on the ropes and, in the midst of a short flurry, landed an uppercut in to Davis’ throat, which caused Davis to gag on his mouthpiece. The bad blood between the fighters escalated throughout the bout, and though the majority of the match was tensely tentative, each man exchanged taunt for taunt until the bout ended. Both looked for a big finish in round 4, but neither found the opening they needed to gut their opponent. Without gaining the strong finish they desired, the fighters had a little energy left over for some post-bout antics. As Laase hopped on the ropes to flex for his hometown crowd before the decision was called, Davis, getting his gloves removed by cornerman, John Hoffman, used his free hand to make a whip cracking motion at Laase behind his back; a move which Hoffman immediately noticed and immediately scolded Davis for. Still, Davis didn’t seem to heed the reprimand, nor did he appreciate the majority decision for Laase that was called in the seconds to come. The win moves Laase’s record up to an undefeated 3-0.

 

 

The following bout was a tired and true war, filled with upsets and recoveries, busted eyes and bloodied faces between two promising blood and guts warriors. Proving to be a prototype for the best Minnesota boxing has to offer, this bout was just a classic, classic performance. The bout was between new Horton’s gym recruit, Lakota fighter Tim “Thunder Heart” Taggart (2-0 (1KO)) and Second’s Out Minneapolis fighter John “Ironman” Schmidt (4-1 (3KO)). Some Minnesota boxing fans who attended the Kolle/Vanda middleweight eliminator last November questioned whether Schmidt would keep his head together in a bout with a fighter like Taggart. During his last fight to a tough, but as of yet unvictorious Nick Whiting (0-8-1) from Bemidiji, Schmidt seemed unsettled and thrown off balance by Whiting’s dogged toughness. No matter how much blood Schmidt drew and no matter how many face shots he landed, Whiting stood up to the onslaught and ended the bout by bloodying Schmidt’s nose and almost causing an upset in the final round. Taggart, who as to yet, has fought two pro bouts with a fearless, focused, and level-headed style, posed quite a formidable challenge to Schmidt. Since Taggart moved up to Duluth from Hinckley to train with Chuck Horton, Twin Ports boxing fans now embrace Taggart as a Horton’s/Duluth fighter, making this bout echo of the Twin Ports/Twin Cities rivalries among 2 very competitive camps which both boast two lines of very talented regional fighters. Schmidt and Taggart showed just how much both camps have to offer boxing fans in the state. For those who were not in attendance for their fight, please sit back for a moment and survey the kind of bout these two camps have to offer when they go toe-to-toe…
Round 1: the battle for area code began with a running battle charge from Taggart. Taggart chased down Schmidt almost to his corner. Schmidt moved out of the advance with jabs, but Taggart keeps on with his advance. Taggart fired a left in Schmidt’s face, which he tried to duck and counter with a right to the guts, but Taggart backed out before the punch even left the cannon, slamming Schmidt in the ear with a punishing left hook and a fat right cross to the jaw. Schmidt wobbles back onto the ropes with Taggart right on him. Taggart set up with a disorienting jab and fired a huge right hand to Schmidt’s left eye, dropping him to his knees before Taggart could even finish the combination with the left hook he intended. Schmidt slammed his eyes shut as if blinded by a bright light. Yet Schmidt got back up, his eye already purpling as he began to work his way back into the game as Taggart’s corner screamed for him to finish Schmidt with an uppercut. Schmidt knew he had to keep Taggart off him until he could recover from that punishing eye shot, which Schmidt covered with his forearms as he tried to blink back into focus. In the interim, Schmidt lost sight of Taggart due to the involuntary hard blinks. To compensate for this, Schmidt takes to jabbing. A hard left jab and right cross to the face from Schmidt set Taggart’s nose a-bleeding. Schmidt began to load up toward the end of the round, landing jabs and body shots, which Taggart returned with snapping shots to the head. The round weighing heavy in Taggart’s favor, Schmidt tried to turn the tide, finding an opening in Taggart’s defense and smacking him with stiff shots to the face. Taggart’s corner screams for Taggart to “Move your head damn it!” while Taggart shakes off the shots, eyes on Schmidt as Schmidt landed a few more blows to the head. The bell rings, and round one is called with Taggart in the lead.
Round two and three were testaments to head-hunting, and the blood began to flow. Schmidt began the round with an advance, firing jabs and crosses aimed at Taggart’s chin, which Taggart countered with continued punishment to Schmidt’s purpling left eye. Schmidt sent a lacing left jab across the side of Taggart’s face, followed with a right before pivoting out and catching sight of a cut dribbling blood under Taggart’s left eye. Taggart finally snuck his uppercut in, which broke Schmidt’s left hook into a powerless clinch around Taggart’s neck. But Schmidt answered in turn with a fat right hand to Taggart’s face. The rest of this round, each fighter must have suffered at least 10 shots to the head a piece, Taggart returning to his corner with blood smeared across his face from the cuts and Schmidt still blinking hard from the continued punishment to his eye. Schmidt began to take the authority here landing more shots at the end of the round; however, Taggart snapped some of his punches with punishing authority. So many shots to the head were landed in round three that ref Mark Nelson’s face softened into a look of meditative fatherly concern as he danced around the fighters, first watching Taggart get his mouth guard knocked out, then Taggart returning by knocking Schmidt’s mouth guard aloose with a huge right hand across the jaw. Before he could shove it back in, Taggart attacked, punching Schmidt into a corner and knocking his guard out the rest of the way. Schmidt got his mouth guard knocked out again before the round was over, and Taggart made sure to bloody his nose before the round was done. By the fourth round, Taggart, having spent so much energy delivering crippling blows in round 1 and 2, looked gassed when he bell rang. The head-hunting continued until Taggart began to wobble under the onslaught of Schmidt’s punishing hooks to the head. The men went guard-to-guard, breaking away to slam a head-snapping, mutual 1,2 simultaneously at each other. Schmidt landed a jarring hook across Taggart’s jaw which sent his head swiveling, his shoulders slumping slightly and the back of his neck looking weak. Schmidt, breathing hard from up under his black mouth guard, sensed the effect and sent out one more 1, 2 before Nelson stepped between the two exhausted fighters, cupping his hand behind Taggart’s neck and waving his hand over his head calling the bout. The crowd exploded into booing as Taggart leaned on the ropes in his corner, spitting out his mouth guard as his corner yelled, “What are you **@@!!! kidding me?” Taggart shook his head in dismay. In 1 minute and 53 seconds into the fourth round, John “Ironman” Schmidt was called the winner by TKO. Clearly, both fighters fought a match of ebb, flow and honor, both fighters should be proud of what they accomplished that night. I don’t think there was a single person in the crowd who wouldn’t want to see these two young men duke it out again. That’s the kind of bout both fighter and fans learn from, and that is the kind of bout true boxing fans want to see.

 

In what proved to be one of the most lumbering bouts of the evening, heavyweights Icelander Skuli “The Icelandic Thug” Armannsonn (254lbs.) and Hayward, Wisconsin fighter Caleb Nelson (218lbs.) both battled it out in their pro debut. Armannsonn is the latest edition to team Horton, a relationship stemming from the Duluth team’s fighters voyaging to Iceland to help establish boxing in Iceland. On the voyage were Coach Horton, Zach “Jungle Boy” Walters and Gary “Stone Cold” Eyer, Eyer in fact earning his ring name during the trip from Icelanders who noticed how Eyer squints his eyes and delivers a “Stone Cold” stare at his opponents from across the ring in the moments preceding the pre bout standoff. Recently having fought as a contender for the Icelandic Olympic team, Armannsson switched up his style to fit a more “professional” vein this last spring and last week before the fight. In round 1, huge-trapped and icy-eyed Nelson charged forward head first into Armannsson, using his bald head like a battering ram, which, considering his height disadvantage, only made its way into Armannsson’s chest. As if weighed down by his ropey muscularity and oversized traps, Nelson’s punches proved wide-swiping and wild, his musculature not permitting his arms to send a shot that could surpass his head. Giant Armannsson closed his gloves over Nelson’s head and shoved him down and away, then sent out occasional jabs as he tried to get Nelson to back up enough so that he could hit him. Nelson just kept ramming in, advances looking like a cross between a wrestler and traffic cop in a windstorm, fighting at Armannsson without seeing him, and all the while forgetting to exhale. After some thudding shots from Armannsson to Nelson’s face, the side of the head, and to the body, Nelson’s face and neck were beet-red, his jugular veins bursting out the sides of his thick neck like anchor ropes. He stumbled back into his corner grabbing his guts with the effect of the onslaught. After an 8 count, ref Nelson called them back in. The exchanged a couple of blows, and then, the bell rang. In round 2, Armannsson must have known that he had little work left to do to finish Nelson. Nelson again moved in with his wrestling battle barrage, even cornering Armannsson for a brief moment. Once Nelson swung his way off balance, Armannsson took his shot, sending a right hand lead and a jab that sent Nelson awobble, his mouth dripping blood down his chin from underneath his mouthpiece. A few thick face shots and a dense burst to the guts later, Nelson fell down to his knees and bent over, only his outstretched arms holding him up as if in the midst of a broken push-up. The crowd jumped to their feet at Armannsson’s KO victory, and Chuck Horton, in a light-hearted mood, faked like he was going to lift Armannsson up for a victory spin around the ring, but the likelihood of lifting the giant Armannsson would have been an effort akin to trying to deroot a California redwood. In his pro debut, Skuli Armannsson scored a KO victory 1 minute and 40 seconds into the 2nd round.

 

Anyone who went to the February 23rd title fight in Superior last winter could hardly wait to see how young boxing technician Gary “Stone Cold” Eyer would make his way into the ring. At the last fight, welterweight Eyer entered to the musical styling of none other than Boy George himself, hilariously asking his opponent “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” before they even started the bout. To add to that shockingly comic display, Eyer donned multi-colored tie-dye boxing trunks with white fringe, and in some strangely disorienting contradistinction, Eyer modestly entered the ropes with a veritable pinwheel of towels circulating his neck. For this bout, Eyer limited his towel adornment to one long towel with a hole cut in the middle, which he sported like a poncho. Yet once Eyer had the “poncho” removed, he revealed his latest adornment to his ring attire, a tattoo of large pair of red boxing gloves hanging from a tattooed nail, which stretched down his left side from chest to hip. Once in action, Eyer, yet again, proved that not only can he joke with the best of them, he can also kick the cornrows right off anyone who dares to face him in the ring. It took Eyer a mere 2 minutes and 20 seconds to polish off his opponent this time. Eyer entered the bout with a slightly over-eager advance, throwing himself a little off balance with the first two combinations he threw at Bismarck North Dakota’s Terrance “Two-Tone” Trottier Jr. (0-2). Trottier, a somewhat spindly, spidery fighter, danced out of Eyer’s advance and tried to stifle his combinations mid-swing with clinches. Eyer returned the evasion with pressure, moving Trottier to the ropes and keeping him there, softening up his defense with one combination and then punching him to the floor in the second one. Eyer and his corner must have thought that they had just seen a knockdown, since Eyer stood ready to move back into the fight and his corner was still yelling instructions at him. Amidst their initial impressions, the bout was called, Eyer scoring a KO victory in the first round. This time, Coach Horton could lift his fighter up for a victory lap around the ring, Eyer modestly smiling and somewhat hesitantly flexing for the crowd.

 

In the co-main event for the NABA Americas middleweight championship, the alleged pre-bout verbal scores were settled between Andy “Kaos” Kolle (16-1 (12KO)) and Contender alum, Nashville, Tennessee’s Jonathan “Reid Dawg” Reid (34-9 (19KO). Kolle’s stiff left hand shots showed no hint of his recent left knuckle injury from the fight with Vanda. After an almost 7 month lapse in bouts, his last victory a huge win against St. Paul’s Matt “The Predator” Vanda (38-6 (21KO)), Kolle entered the ring with cool calculation as Reid couldn’t help but dance a little to Kolle’s catchy ring music while he waited for the bout to begin. Taste in music aside, neither fighter knew that going into the bout, they had the same game plan: Make him come to you. This was clearly displayed in the first round which was dominated by circling, testing and jabs. The round was not limited to this, however, each fighter cracking the other in the face with hard, sharp straight punches. As Kolle made his way back to his corner at the end of the round, you could tell that he knew he was in for the long haul. Round 2 began with much of the same, both fighters beginning to realize that they were working for the same ends. This is where the differences in their stances became more apparent, southpaw Kolle in classic defense, hands up, chin down, gloves under his eyes, and Reid, standing in profile, his right hand cocked and loaded at the side of his jaw and his left bent down at an angle at the hip. Mid-round Kolle seemed to tire of jabbing and lunged at Reid with a 1,2 combination which sent Reid into the corner. As Kolle worked to add hooks to finish off the combination, Reid hooked his arm and clinched, blocking the punches through entanglement. After ref Nelson breaks them up, Kolle tried to get inside with right feints, and stopped at a complete standstill toward the end of the round for a very long 3 seconds before firing another 1,2, but again, Kolle is stopped from landing hooks with another tangling clinch from Reid which lasted until the bell rang. Round 3 ran much of the same way, both fighters keeping range, but getting tired of waiting for each other to move inside. By round 4, both fighters seemed to realize that they had to change tactics, but both were trying to decide how to mix it up. Kolle moved in with more combinations, some which he completed, some which earned him a head-snapping counter punch from Reid, and some which Reid tried to clinch his way out of, shoving his head underneath Kolle’s hook and pushing each fighter side to side, profiles facing opposite each other with arms entangled.
In round 5, the styles of the fighters began to invert as each fighter mixed up their strategy to work their way inside. Kolle mimicked Reid’s profile stance, and Reid began to raise his gloves under his chin like Kolle did in the initial rounds. It was as if the legendary mirror quandary of battling a southpaw fighter began to foster a new dimension of mirroring: not only were lead hands mirrored, but styles as well. At one point, Kolle paused, dropping his gloves completely before feinting a right hook and laying into Reid with a hard right cross, left hook, right shove and left hook, sending out one last right cross and left jab for good measure just as Reid lifted his head back up from the exchange. Kolle then began to work right jabs and left leads until Reid popped him in the face, causing his nose to start to bleed. The rest of the round was a jabbing head hunt, and the skin under Kolle’s left eye peeled with a cut he suffered from redirecting the pace and strategy of the rounds to come. In round 6, Kolle began to hook his way out of Reid’s clinches, which he used in the beginning rounds to stifle the end of Kolle’s combinations. Reid returns the smart strategic switch by throwing a head flipping double right on Kolle. Mid-round Kolle punched Reid into the ropes, and Kolle turned his back on Reid at the end of the exchange. Reid took advantage of the break in Kolle’s defense, throwing a couple of punches of his own before Kolle could turn back around. Kolle tried again to punch Reid back onto the ropes, but Reid took advantage of the ropes, catapulting himself back at Kolle too quickly for Kolle to break Reid down with any more punches while he was on the ropes. Kolle began to pick up the pace, punching through Reid’s hard jabs to his face. Each fighter began to read each other’s moves, neither falling for the same exchange twice. Clearly both were trying to find a way to go after each other at this point, and each returned to their corners with battered eyes, knowing that this fight would last the full 10 rounds. Both fighters returned to finish the final 4 rounds, both working craft and stealth to out-box the other. In round 7, Kolle decided to mimic Reid’s profile stance. This moves slowed Reid down, causing him to send out jabs which Andy easily ducked or slipped. Then Andy capitalized off the stance, firing a right, left, right punishment to Reid which sent him rocking back, re-examining his opponent for the first time with an air of well-earned veteran respect. “Where the h@** did he get that from?” Kolle’s corner exclaimed with residual joy, “I never taught him that.” Clearly, Kolle knew what he was doing because Reid didn’t land another punch on him before the end of the round. In round 8 and 9, Kolle continued his now intuitive domination of Reid’s style, amidst Reid’s solid counter punches and clinches. And round 10 showcased the reinvented Kolle jab, which he used to steer the round in his favor. Reid, clearly exhausted at this point, reverted to his hooking clinches to try and keep Kolle off. Reid delivered a solid jab of his own, but Kolle pawed and pounded him off with his jabs until he found a way to deliver some snapping combinations amidst his exhaustion. Kolle brought his guard back up, moving his head back and forth and delivering jabs and crosses in search of a combination as spectacular as his dogged ferocity in the preceding 9 rounds. Reid attempted a square-shouldered stall like Kolle posited before he caught him with those face-crunching head shots, but to no avail. The tide had turned in Kolle’s favor, and even though the bout ended with a pensive exhaustion and a clinch, it was clear that Kolle had earned his title, but inversely, his opponent proved so formidable that a previously reviling home-town audience cleared their home-grown antagonism for Reid. After such an intelligent display of intuition and grit, locals now viewed Reid with respect for his ferocious and classy display of veteran boxing. Though Kolle out-boxed Reid that night using hard shots to the head and slick redirections in strategy, both men must have woken the following morning wondering if they would be able to open their eyes with the post bout swelling they must have suffered by delivering a truly masterful display of boxing intuition and power to Twin Ports fans. Kolle won by unanimous decision, and Reid picked him up for a victory spin around the ring so local fans could appreciate Kolle from an elevated full view that could be seen by all angles of the Wessman arena. Chuck Horton, in turn, picked up Reid for his own victory spin, ironically during the ring music which Reid could not prevent himself from dancing to before the round even began.

 

And finally, battling for the NABA Americas Light heavyweight title and fighting in his second consecutive title bout in just 4 months, Zach “Jungle Boy” Walters (22-2 (17KO)) went head-to-head with Aaron “The Assassin” Norwood (25-9-2 (13KO)). Hattiesburg Mississippi’s Norwood came to the fight off of a 3 win streak, 2 of the bouts he ended in the first round by KO or TKO. Norwood, unfazed by the thundering loyalty of Walter’s hometown fans, came to the bout ready to deliver an upset. Walters, winning his last 7 bouts, came to the ring with plans for a quick KO. After a preliminary round of studious exchanges and switches in stance and style, Walters, seeking his KO victory made quick work of Norwood in the second round. Walters worked Norwood down from chin to guts until a reactive clinch from Norwood sent Walters’ blows down past commission standards, Norwood deflating after a low left hand crunch to the groin. As Norwood lay face down on the canvas his mouth guard plopping out of his mouth in a dull, slow-motion, guttural seize, Walters stood tall, back to the neutral corner, rolling his eyes as if very ready to keep the fight going, perhaps not realizing at the moment that his last punch hit Norwood below the belt. Norwood rolled onto his back, gagging with what looked like flecks of vomit on his chin as ref Nelson told him that he had five minutes to stand up before he was disqualified. Clearly, this was not an exchange that either fighter could have wanted or expected, but so is the realm of inside exchanges in the wild world of boxing. The crowd, perhaps, understood the occasion, for when Norwood peeled himself off the canvas and stood back up, they roared with appreciation for Norwood’s dogged determination. Norwood heaved a couple of times, dragged his feet over to his corner and accepted his mouthpiece from his corner’s hand, ready to continue amidst the unintentional foul as his trainer squirted cold water down his trunks. As the ref lifted his hand to indicate the resumption of the bout, both fighters looked at each other and reached far out to touch gloves in a display of true sportsmanship and professional understanding of the chaos of the game they chose to play. Norwood shot out multiple jabs to recommence the bout and Walters returned with dips, guards, uppercuts, and what looked like smiles. They broke free from each other, clinched and repositioned. Walters moved back, set up his shot and landed a beautiful right uppercut right under Norwood’s chin, snapping Norwood’s head back and sending him flying against the ropes. Norwood rebounded off, albeit unintentionally, and fell back into his corner. Walters landed three more shots and ref Nelson jumped in, waving his hand above Norwood’s head and wrapping his arms around his neck and shoulders to prevent him from trying to carry on. The bout was called in 2 minutes and 8 seconds of round two, cementing another title victory and TKO for Zach “Jungle Boy” Walters.

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