Holmes Wins Forum’s Middleweight Crown With 10th-Round KO

Brian Muller couldn’t see continuing.

As a matter of fact, the middleweight champion of Guyana couldn’t see much of anything out of his left eye after catching a left hook from Lindell Holmes a third of the way through the 10th round of their scheduled 12-rounder Monday night at the Forum.

So Muller (20-2-1) went to one knee and was counted out 1:17 into the round, giving Holmes (29-4, 28 knockouts) the championship of a Forum middleweight tournament, along with the first prize of $50,000.

“I hit him with a left hook and he said everything went blurry,” Holmes said of his opponent. “I’m glad he thought of safety first. He’s got his whole life to live. Fifty thousand dollars ain’t going to give you back your eyesight.”

Muller, from Las Vegas, was down in the first round, from another left hook, but got up immediately and used his awkward style to get back in the fight.

Holmes, who is from Detroit, would now like to fight that city’s most recognizable middleweight, Thomas Hearns.

While the Holmes-Muller fight was billed as Monday’s main event, the main action took place earlier when Frankie Duarte (38-6-1, 28 knockouts) of Venice and North Hollywood’s Ten Goose boxing organization won a tough but unanimous 10-round decision over Mike Moreno (19-3-1) of Tucson, Ariz., in a quarterfinal match of a Forum bantamweight tournament.

Duarte, 31, gave away 10 years to his opponent, but not much else in a fight that featured enough action to cause the crowd of 4,500 to shower the ring with approximately $100 in coins when the final bell had sounded.

Duarte will meet George Garcia (25-3-2) of Westminster in a semifinal match scheduled for April 21. Garcia also advanced Monday by winning a unanimous 10-round decision over Mario Gomez (19-6) of Laredo, Tex.