A big local promoter is planning a big show in Sioux Falls, and a big Minnesota heavyweight has been invited!
Seconds Out Promotions is all but ready to announce a November 28 show to be held in South Dakota’s largest city. No contracts have been signed, but negotiations are ongoing and the hoped-for attraction would be a Minnesota fighter with a South Dakota connection.
Watch this space for more information soon!
According to a release from Tony G at Seconds Out Promotions Willshaun Boxley and Mohammed Kayongo have been dropped from the “Undefeated” card at Grand Casino Hinckley on Friday August 29 because opponents could not be located for either man.
The good news is that in just the last couple of days a cruiserweight bout between Harley Kilfian and Emerson Chasing Bear has been added to the card, so the event hasn’t been cleaned out.
Our interview was conducted over the phone, and Phil “The Drill” Williams didn’t answer when I called. I left a voice mail and waited for him to call back. When the phone finally did ring, he was apologetic: “Sorry I didn’t call you back right away, but I had to get the kids sat down for supper.” A fellow dad…I like this guy already.
Introductions and formalities aside, I asked Phil to tell me a little bit about himself. After all, for all the hype that accompanies his 8-0 (8 kayos) record, little is known about the Drill. First off, he was born in Queens, New York. He was named after his mother’s father at Grandpa’s request - it seems Grandpa had no sons, and wanted a namesake. His mom took him and moved away when he was about six years old, and after some side trips to North Carolina and Chicago, they settled in North Minneapolis not long after. So Williams is New York bred but Minnesota raised, and that makes him a real Minnesotan. As a youth Williams says he was always athletic, and he was enthusiastic in his pursuit of basketball and football, but admittedly “didn’t have the grades to participate as a student.” As a young man he went to barber school and found a good job working in that field. But then he began to think, he was always a pretty good fighter, how good could he really be? Pretty good, it turns out.
Williams walked into the now defunct Glover’s Gym in NE Minneapolis (at Lowry and Central), and although he was a late starter, he blossomed right away, winning three state titles (’03-’05) and two Upper Midwest Golden Gloves titles (’04 and ‘05) at light heavyweight on his way to compiling an amateur record of 31-4. He’ll tell you matter-of-factly that he had plenty of power even as an amateur, but he’s had some really spectactular moments as a professional. Most notably, his destruction of Marcus Upshaw in June (which was posted to YouTube) has gotten him some real attention. This summer he’s heard from Richard Steele and Buddy McGirt, and even traveled to spar with Andre Dirrell in July. How did that go? Williams is both philosophical and cryptic: “That was a good experience…the only thing about it is that when they bring you in to spar, they want you to be sparring partner, not a fighter. And I’m not a sparring kind of guy; I’m a fighter.” So was it a good experience? “Yeah, I learned about techniques and different ways of training and whatnot. The way they do their sparring and training, and I like to learn other ways of doing things…I want to pick up good things from different people and places.” Williams is still managed by Chuck and Pete Daskiewicz, and they’ve decided that for now Williams needs to focus on the task at hand, which he is doing.
The task at hand is a headlining appearance on August 29, on the Seconds Out show at Grand Casino Hinckley. He’ll be facing 13-0-1 (10 kayos) Marcus Oliveira of Lawrence, KS. I mentioned to Phil that he is wasting no time in going up the ladder. “No sense in going backwards,” he laughed. He explained that with his unexpectedly rapid rise in the Boxrec rankings and the attention he’s been getting, he couldn’t see fighting a man with a 4-11 record at this point in his career. In fact, he had thought for a long time that his goal would be a match with Minnesota’s reigning light heavyweight king Zach “Jungle Boy” Walters (23-2 with 18 kayos) of Duluth, but now he’s focusing on other things. “I actually wanted to fight Rubin “Mister Hollywood” Williams, and I told Tony G to get him for me, but when Tony called me back and said that Oliveira was available and he’s unbeaten, I agreed to fight him.” I asked what Williams knows about Oliveira and he deadpanned: “His name.”
By this time in the interview I was thinking that this dude is one of the most earnest, upbeat, and positive people I’ve talked to in boxing, and then he took it to another level.
“I have got a grand plan,” he confided. “I want to start a DRILL foundation, a DRILL movement. DRILL is an acronym for Directly Related to the Inner city with Love and Loyalty.” Here the Drill began to get animated. “In this part of town young guys give up when they get into trouble, or when they aren’t doing well in school. They feel like failures, and as a result they get into whatever’s going on around them, they’re misdirected. But I have some influence, in this neighborhood: when I talk people listen to me. They come to the shop or they come play basketball with me. They respect me, I talk to them and they hear positive stuff out of me. They hear me, and they understand me, but they don’t have the means of doing it. You can talk about positivity till you’re blue in the face, but when they go home it’s a different reality for them. So I want to help them find the means to do the good things they want to do.” How can he do this? “Through boxing. Boxing has helped me to find discipline and focus, to really connect with that discipline that I found in the gym, and I want to share the blessings with other people. I want to open my own gym someday, I’ll call it ‘The Drill Camp,’ and our team will be ‘The Drill Team.’ And we’re gonna have some positive stuff going on.”
The Fistic Mystic says: Phil “The Drill” Williams is a very passionate guy, full of his message and excited about life. Keep an eye on this man, because he’s headed for big things, both in and out of the ring.
Here’s how things are shaping up to date (8-17):
Young Andy “Kaos” Kolle, originally from Fergus Falls, has decided to make his temporary move to Duluth a permanent arrangement.
Kolle (17-1 with 12 kayos) had been a student at North Dakota State University in Fargo until January of this year, when he quit school to take a shot at being a full-time professional boxer. Until then Kolle had been taking classes four days a week and making a long drive every weekend to spend three days working out at his professional home, Horton’s Gym in Duluth. Back in December, just before making the move to Duluth, Kolle told me that he was committed to stay in Duluth through May. After a long winter and spring with no fights (two dates were set and canceled; in February and again in April), Kolle’s management finally found him an opponent for June. Kolle put on a great show in beating veteran middleweight Jonathan Reid (34-9) in a ten-round fight for the vacant NABA US middleweight title. So sharp was Kolle that of the three judges, one scored eight rounds in his favor, one gave him nine, and one gave him a sweep of all ten rounds.
Kaos celebrates a win
At this time Kolle is back in Fargo settling his affairs there. The lease on his old apartment expires at the end of August, and he plans to return to Duluth permanently. One thing that’s unclear at this time is the status of Horton’s Gym, which lost its home in June when an intense fire badly damaged its building and much of the gym’s equipment. “To be perfectly honest with you I don’t know much about the gym in Duluth,” Kolle says. “I just know that when I left we didn’t have a gym or equipment to train with. I came home to work and finish off my lease at my apartment in Fargo so I could complete the transition to Duluth and be…a permanent resident up there. [After my lease is up] I will be getting a place of my own up in Duluth. If the gym isn’t ready when I get up there I’ll make do just like the rest of the guys have been. I started my pro career training myself out of my one stall garage, if that’s what we gotta do then so be it. If God can bring you to it, he can bring you through it, right?”
I asked Kolle about Tony Bonsante’s disastrous loss to Adonis Stevenson on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights, in which Bonsante was knocked down in the first round and seemed to be out cold until the count of six - when he suddenly rose looking strong and alert at the same moment the ref stopped the fight. “I actually worked the night of Bonsante’s fight so I invited a bunch of people out to the bar I work at to watch what was potentially my next opponent. Needless to say, it didn’t get them excited about a matchup between the two of us. I really have never pushed for a fight - except when I fought Vanda because at the time I personally felt I needed to fight him - and I’m not going to push my team for this fight. If my team wants me to fight Bonsante then you better believe I’ll be ready. If they want me to move in another direction, like moving to 154#, then I’m fine with that as well.” If another fighter said this I might suspect bluster, but Kolle has never been coy with me and I’m inclined to believe this is really the way he feels. Just the same, Bonsante remains the Minnesota middleweight champion, and combined with his very respectable 31-10 career record, that makes him an attractive and saleable opponent.
An unsavory source recently tried to feed me an implausible rumor about who Kolle has been sparring with lately, and I mentioned that to him. “I love rumors, but that’s exactly what this is, a rumor. Since I have been in Fargo…the only sparring I’ve had has been with a big heavyweight from Grand Forks.”
Although Kolle isn’t scheduled to fight August 31 at Fortune Bay Casino in Tower, his Horton’s Gym cohorts Zach Walters and RJ Laase are. An interesting aspect of this card is that Kolle’s friend and stable mate Laase (3-0 with 1 kayo) is scheduled to fight Tyler Gould (5-1 with 5 kayos), who is also a friend and a former training partner of Kolle’s. This is a highly anticipated match between two of the best young welterweights in the Upper Midwest, and a good reason to make the long, long trek to Fortune Bay on Labor Day weekend. Says Kolle, “It’s going to be a classic matchup of a smooth boxer [Laase] against a raw slugger [Gould]. It will be entertaining!” Under the circumstances Kaos has to be careful who he associates with. “I have run with Tyler on a few occasions before I knew the fight got inked [but] RJ is my teammate so I can’t put myself in the mix of these two guys. I have to be loyal to my team.”
Kolle may know what his future holds, but apart from making his move to Duluth permanent and continuing to train hard, he isn’t revealing much. He says he doesn’t worry too much about the future; he just fights whoever his team puts in front of him. Minnesota’s boxing fans will just have to wait and see what emerges from Kaos.
The Fistic Mystic says: There are a lot of intriguing potential opponents out there for Kolle: Minnesotans like Bonsante, Kenny Kost, and Caleb Truax could all make for great local publicity and compelling matchups. In the wider world, a famous name like the always-working Yory Boy Campas (who still has a big punch but can be outboxed) or an untested rising comer like Gee Cullmer (a friend in Philly thinks this is a good match) would look good on Kolle’s resume.
Antwan Robertson has signed contracts to fight on August 31 at Fortune Bay Casino in Tower and on September 20 at Treasure Island Casino in Red Wing.
Robertson has also disclosed that he’s open to fighting Tim Watts again, in light of Watts’ public request for a rematch published here just days ago. Robertson responds, “Does he remember I moved up two weight classes to fight him? But we will fight again.”
Li’l Superman divulged that as far as he knows no opponents have been inked for his upcoming bouts, but his manager, John Hoffman, continues to scour the Upper Midwest for warm bodies.
“Antwan’s a tough competitor. It would be nice if he could come up a bit more in weight. its hard for me sometimes to make that weight. I’m sure you can appreciate the detrimental effects it can have losing weight quickly. I was supposed to fight a different guy and he dropped out, so I started eating crap and relaxed too much and gained some weight that I had to lose quickly…Then my promoter said he had a fight for me and it was Antwan.”
Watts’ assessment of Roberton as a fighter:
“You gotta be seriously prepared for a fight with a guy like Antwan - he’s a tough guy and he hits hard. I have no doubt that he can be a top ranked world class fighter. I hope he one day wins a world title , I really do. I hope he remembers me in good faith; I think he’s a good guy.”
Anthony Bonsante
Given that:
It seems like the two are on a collision course. Zach Walters can’t still be pushing for a match with Bonsante - a win against Bonsante would do little to burnish Walters’ reputation because Bonsante is two weight classes below him and coming off a bad loss. Andy Kolle, on the other hand, is a middleweight. Kolle has said in the past that he would really like to get Bonsante in the ring, and Bonsante has been quoted by Jesse Kelley of Minnesotaboxing.com saying, “Obviously the fight to be made in Minnesota is Andy Kolle…I guarantee I can beat Kolle.” (interview published July 1)
Andy Kolle
Fighting a local middleweight makes sense for Bonsante, given that in the aftermath of the Stevenson fight, he’s lost much of his attractiveness as an opponent outside of Minnesota. But Bonsante is still the Minnesota middleweight titleholder, and that makes a fight against Kolle or Kost marketable.
The Fistic Mystic says: Will the big ears of Minnesota boxing hear this call for a Bonsante-Kolle match? Doubtless their big brains are already considering it, and they don’t need to hear it from me.
Antonio Johnson has announced that he’ll be back in the prizefighting ring on September 11, at a Dan Goossen promoted show in Fresno, California. Johnson’s opponent will be 9-1 Francisco Santana. No word yet on what other fighters will appear on the same card.
We’re all business in the preflight stuff.
Round 1
It’s stricly jabs to the 2:37 mark, Bonsante goes down from a left hook at about 2:30…and jumps up at the count of six or seven. The ref has waved off the fight even though Bonsante is up and alert and Bonsante is incensed! He’s alert and his mind seems clear and he’s very angry. Bonsante and the ref are yelling at each other! A little later Bonsante had a brief discussion with Stevenson in which the two came to a quick agreement on something.
Post Fight
This is definitely the weirdest fight I’ve seen this year. Was Bonsante deciding whether to get up or not? Was he waiting for the world to stop spinning before opening his eyes? Why did the ref wait until Bonsante was getting up to wave off the fight, instead of doing it while he was flat on his back with his eyes closed?
