Echols returns to NQC ring
Antwun Echols is back.
The former NABF super middleweight and USBA middleweight champion scored a controversial seventh-round TKO of Jameel Wilson in the co-main event of the first Northern Quest Casino fight card in December.
“Kid Dynamite” takes on Kingsley “Sharp Knuckle” Ikeke in the 12-round main event of tonight’s nationally televised boxing card at the Airway Heights casino’s Pend Oreille Pavilion.
The card will be carried live on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. The doors open at 6 p.m., with the first bout scheduled to start at 7.
“It’s good to be fighting here again,” Echols said. “The fans know me and they know I’m going to come out and give them a good show. I couldn’t help the way the last fight ended. I can only come out and fight hard.”
Echols, 31-5-1 with 27 knockouts, is ranked No. 10 among middleweights by the International Boxing Federation. The Nigerian-born Ikeke, 22-1-0 with 12 knockouts, is ranked sixth. The winner of tonight’s fight will fill the No. 2 ranking behind top contender Sam Soliman, which is vacant.
The value of being the No. 2 contender took a nosedive Thursday, when the IBF said it would grant an exemption to its current middleweight champion, Bernard Hopkins.
Hopkins, considered by many to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, is negotiating with fourth-ranked Jermain Taylor for a July 16 bout, although those negotiations are not progressing well. Among other sticking points is the amount Taylor would be paid in a rematch should he score a major upset.
Meanwhile, the IBF had ordered Hopkins to make a mandatory title defense against that organization’s No. 1 contender, Soliman – a fight Hopkins has said he would take only as a last resort should the negotiations with Taylor fall through and bouts with potential opponents Kassim Ouma (the junior middleweight champ, Jeff Lacy (the super middleweight champ) or Felix Sturm (the third-ranked middleweight) cannot be negotiated.
Had the IBF not indicated it would grant the exemption and Hopkins gone ahead with his planned July 16 fight with someone other than Soliman, he would have been stripped of his title and Soliman would have fought the winner of tonight’s fight for the vacant title.
Hopkins has not officially requested an exemption and likely won’t make that request until he has completed negotiations with an opponent other than Soliman.
Echols shrugged off the behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
“I just fight my fight,” he said. “I’ve trained hard for this fight. That’s all I can do.”
Echols was knocked down in the sixth round by Wilson in his last fight, also at Northern Quest. The next round Echols staggered Wilson with an overhand right and had the challenger up against the ropes when referee Paul Field jumped in to stop the fight – a premature move in the eyes of many observers.