Here is boxing writer Keith Idec’s inside look at the sport:
FEATURED BOUT: Nonito Donaire vs. Nicholas Walters. Donaire (33-2, 21 KOs), of San Leandro, Calif., and Jamaica’s Walters (24-0, 20 KOs) have promised knockouts in a 12-round fight for the WBA featherweight title that’ll be broadcast Saturday by HBO from StubHub Center in Carson, Calif.
“The Filipino Flash” is much more proven at the championship level, but Walters’ three-knockdown, fifth-round knockout of former bantamweight champ Vic Darchinyan (39-7-1, 28 KOs) in his last fight, May 31 in Macau, China, propelled him toward the biggest fight of his six-year pro career. Walters has won 10 of his past 11 bouts by knockout or TKO.
LOCAL LOOK: Hackensack’s Aadam Ali (141 pounds) and Paterson residents Ignacio Camacho (201-plus), Ian Green (165), Rafiel Nyakako (201) and Lisandro Tupete (178) won open-division championships in the New Jersey Diamond Gloves Tournament last week at Linden High School.
Ali, Camacho, Green and Nyakako won three-round decisions. Tupete won by forfeit. Green, a two-time New Jersey Golden Gloves champion, will make his pro debut Nov. 22 in Hanover, Pa. The Eastside alum’s opponent for that four-round, super middleweight match hasn’t been chosen.
THE FINAL BELL: Ten years ago today, authorities found the body of Sam Kellerman in his Hollywood apartment, five days after former super middleweight contender James Butler beat him to death by hitting him in the head with a hammer approximately 30 times.
Kellerman, the younger brother of HBO boxing analyst Max Kellerman, allowed Butler to stay at his home as Butler, nicknamed “The Harlem Hammer,” attempted to rebuild his boxing career following a 10-round, split-decision defeat to Paterson’s Omar Sheika two months earlier in Newark.
Butler, who lit Kellerman’s apartment on fire and stole the freelance sportswriter/aspiring actor’s car after killing him, pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and arson charges in March 2006 and was sentenced to 29 years in prison.
