Norris Delivers Message: Good Night, Goodby : Undercard: Santana, on the receiving end, is finished off in the second round. In other bouts, Seldon retains title, Jackson loses his.
LAS VEGAS — Less than two rounds of precision blasts ended nine of the worst months of Terry Norris’ career.
Norris, whose previous two fights against Luis Santana ended with Norris disqualified on fouls and Santana as the World Boxing Council super-welterweight champion, regained his title Saturday afternoon with a second-round knockout over Santana in an undercard fight before about 7,500 at the MGM Grand.
“I did it--I can’t say anything else,” Norris said. “Now it’s my time to unify the division.”
Though Norris clearly avoided any situation that could have resulted in a foul--he literally hopped backward at the sound of the bell signaling the end of first round--he caught Santana with quick lefts and rocked him at the end of the first round.
In the second, Norris landed a left-right combination that sent Santana to the canvas 46 seconds into the round, floored him again with a clean right hand to the cheek about 40 seconds later, and caused referee Joe Cortez to stop the fight at 2:09 of the round when a right hand to Santana’s chin toppled him a third time.
“I will never fight him again,” Norris said. “He’s out of my life. It should have been over a long time ago.”
It was the second time Norris (39-6, 24 knockouts) has regained the super-welterweight title--he lost it to Simon Brown in December 1993, then beat Brown in a rematch six months later.
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In the fight immediately before the main event, World Boxing Assn. heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon kept his title by lashing jab after jab onto challenger Joe Hipp’s face, eventually causing referee Richard Steele to stop the fight at 1:47 of the 10th round.
By the eighth, Seldon (33-3, 29 KOs) had opened a large gash under Hipp’s left eye, and blood seeped out the rest of the bout. By the 10th, Hipp’s right eye was all but closed and he was no longer even attempting to throw punches.
There were no knockdowns, but Hipp (30-4) only landed a few serious punches, and looked awkward and off-balance under Seldon’s peppering.
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A controversial decision--and post-fight brawl--underlined the first televised bout of the night, when Miguel Angel Gonzalez took a disputed majority-decision victory over challenger Lamar Murphy to retain his World Boxing Council lightweight title.
After the decision was announced, boos rained down from the crowd and trainer Benny Collins was involved in a large scuffle in the middle of the ring.
“The people need to start judging the fights, the judges obviously cannot do it--that’s why the crowd reacted the way it did,” Collins said. “All you have to do is look at the tape.”
From the first round through the 12th, both men hammered each other. Gonzalez (38-0) dug hard hooks to the body--drawing two penalty points for low blows--and Murphy (18-1) scored with quick right hands that raised welts on Gonzalez’s face and flurries when Gonzalez was backed against the ropes.
Judge Daniel Van De Wiele of Belgium scored the fight a draw, 114-114; Dalby Shirley of Las Vegas scored it 114-112 for Gonzalez; and Omar Minton of Mexico scored it 117-109 for the champion from Mexico.
The Times scored the fight for Murphy, 114-112.
“I feel that I definitely won the fight,” Gonzalez said. “The points that were deducted shouldn’t have been deducted. I was hitting him on the belt, which is legal.”
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In the final bout of the night, before a few thousand fans who stayed around after Mike Tyson’s 89-second fight, Quincy Taylor scored an upset over World Boxing Council middleweight champion Julian Jackson.
Taylor (26-3, 22 KOs) knocked down Jackson (51-4, 47 KOs) in the fourth round, then stopped him with a flurry in the sixth.
Taylor, of Dallas, frustrated Jackson, a two-time champion from the Virgin Islands, with his left-handed style.
Jackson, who had won the vacant title on March 17 with a second-round knockout of Agostino Cardamone, lost by knockout for the third time in eight fights.
Jackson, 160, earned $200,000 for losing. Taylor, 159 1/2, got $60,000 for winning.
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