Oliver McCall Losses

Juan Carlos Gomez remains a fringe contender in the heavyweight sweepstakes after scoring a unanimous decision over former heavyweight titlist Oliver McCall Friday night at the Estrel Convention Center in Berlin, Germany.

The bout was an awkward affair, with both fighters showing their age and with their best days clearly far behind. Gomez was far more matador than Black Panther, with his jab and straight left enough to neutralize "The Atomic Bull" and avoid most of the incoming over the first half of the fight. It wasn't pretty, but certainly effective enough for the former cruiserweight king to build an early lead on the cards.

Thanks to open scoring, those in the arena who spoke or even understood German were informed that Gomez was pitching a shutout on all three scorecards after the first four rounds. McCall didn't have to sprechten Sie Deutsches to know that he was already running out of rounds as early as the fifth.

The 42-year old began closing the gap as the fight entered the second half, sensing he was already in desperate need of a knockout. The moment would never come, though McCall had Gomez marked up after eight rounds. However, the judges wounds ran deeper, with open scoring revealing a 4, 6 and 8 point deficit on the cards with just four rounds to go.

McCall turned up the heat in the 9th, with Gomez reluctant to engage, fighting in reverse in avoiding any potential incoming. It worked for much of the round and into the 10 th, before McCall landed a right hand that shook the transplanted Cuban. A four punch combo ended what was undoubtedly McCall's best round of the fight.

However, poor conditioning – a statement rarely attributed to McCall throughout his career – led to fatigue, with McCall all but giving away the 11 th. Gomez took advantage, turning a fight back into a boxing match as he put the final nail in the coffin.

Well aware that he needed a knockout to win heading into the final round, McCall danced as hard as his 42-year old body would let him. Unfortunately for Oliver, Gomez wasn't settling for sitting on a lead, throwing and land just enough to not only prevent a dramatic ending but also take the round on all three cards.

There was no doubt who won the fight at nights end, with the announcement of the official scores a mere formality. Final scores of 118-110 (2x) and 116-112 gave Gomez his fourth straight win, running his record to 43-1 (35KO). He is unbeaten in his past seven fights (6-0-0-1 NC, 4KO), following the lone loss of his career, a shocking upset 1 st round TKO at the hands of Yanqui Diaz.

Gomez was the announced winner over McCall in their first fight two years ago, but the official verdict was changed to a no-contest after Gomez tested positive for cocaine. He vehemently denies having used the drug, calling the test a false positive, but was still forced out of the game for a year before returning to the ring last December.

McCall falls to 51-9 (36KO) with the loss, snapping a six-fight win streak. He was somewhere in the WBC mix, having won an elimination bout against Sinan Samil Sam four months ago. The win placed him as a mandatory challenger, due to fight the winner of the cluster that is the Oleg Maskaev-Samuel Peter-Vitali Klitschko triangle.

It's understandable why McCall would take a tune-up in the interim. Why he would take a rematch with Gomez, though, is anyone's guess, though financial compensation obviously played a big part. Drug test notwithstanding, Gomez handled McCall with relative ease their first time around, and it's clear that McCall, at age 42, wasn't about to adjust his game to somehow solve Gomez' style.

McCall took this fight and a $400,000 payday that came with it, having turned down a $100,000 offer as a late replacement for Samuel Peter after Maskaev pulled out of their October 6 bout.

Jameel McCline took the bout, thrice dropping Peter before letting his foot off of the gas and giving away a decision. It's not unreasonable to suggest that, paydays aside, McCall will second guess the decision-making process in this one, perhaps the closest he'll ever again get to fighting for an alphabet title.

Gomez takes McCall's place, though a shot at an alphabet title isn't exactly around the corner. Peter is due to face Maskaev in February, with the winner ordered to face Klitschko, in the event that Vitali elects to actually go through with his comeback. Wherever Gomez lands in that mess, he's still in a better place than he was a year ago – completely irrelevant, which is saying a lot considering the state of the division then, now and in the foreseeable future.

A pair of prospects offered impressive showing in the evening's two swing/walkout bouts. Gomez stablemate and heavyweight prospect Odlanier Solis (6-0, 5KO) starched American-based punching bag Jeremy Bates inside of two rounds. Solis, a gold medalist in the 2004 Olympics and six-time Cuban national champion, defected from the Cuban squad last year to sign with German-based outfit First Artist. He can stand to lose at least 15-20 of blubber, but Solis continues to impress within the ropes. Turning pro in April, Solis racked up his sixth win in just under six months.

Bates is on the other end of the spectrum, suffering his fifth straight knockout loss, none lasting longer than two rounds. Bates is infamously known as the comeback opponent of choice for Evander Holyfield and Andrew Golota, both of whom blasted the West Virginian out in two rounds.

For those who cry "wasteland" when discussing the state of today's featherweight division, remember the name Yurierkor Gamboa. Solis' amateur teammate and fellow defector finished his nights work in the same amount of time, against a far more established opponent in Samuel Kebede (25-2), knocking him out in two rounds of their scheduled eight. Just six fights into his pro career, Gamboa (6-0, 5KO) is raising the bar for prospects, with his opponents boasting a combined record of 107-21-3 prior to entering the ring with the 25-year old featherweight phenom.
This story was culled from Jake Donovan