With second-round KO, Lange recovers from rare defeat

The last time Jimmy Lange fought, the lights went out. Saturday night, Lange was lights out.

Dominating Jimmy LeBlanc in a second-round flurry, Lange sent his over-matched foe to the canvas three times in less than a minute, scoring a knockout at 1:30 of the second round. The win comes four months after losing to Chase Shields in a fight marred (and altered) by a power outage at George Mason University’s Patriot Center.

The 34-year-old Lange (32-4-2) needed to win this fight to get his career back on track after he was upset by Shields, in a unanimous decision, just his second loss in eight fights at Patriot Center.

“I’ve been sick for [four] months, disgusted with myself,” said Lange about the loss. “There was no excuse for the way I fought last time. I wanted to get back into the ring, get back in front of everybody and do what I had to do.”

After getting hit hard on a few occasions in the opening round, Lange (32-4-2) landed a devastating right to the ribs of the 36-year-old LeBlanc (12-17-4) early in the second round. LeBlanc went to one knee, holding his side.

The Great Falls native continued his assault, knocking LeBlanc down with a solid right to the side of his head. The final decisive blow came with LeBlanc struggling to keep his feet in his own corner. Lange hit a lunging LeBlanc on the forehead, ending the fight with a mandatory third knockdown.  

After losing to Shields, Lange sought the expertise of trainer Jimmy Glenn, who has worked with such luminaries as Floyd Patterson and Howard Davis.

“I just gave him basic training, bending his back, jabbing, moving his head,” said Glenn. “He gets hit too much. He’s improving.”

Lange got hit more than once in the opening round by LeBlanc, whose main claim to fame is an appearance in the crime/drama movie “Gone Baby Gone,” starring Morgan Freeman. 

“He caught me once in the first round, right hand,” said Lange, who bore some scars after the short fight. “I didn’t come out fast on purpose because I wanted to feel it in there. I wanted to get back in there and get some rounds.”

But the second round was a different story.

“I caught him in the first round, some decent punches. I wasn’t able to capitalize on that,” said LeBlanc. “He came with a good body shot. The rest is history.”

It was an unusual instance of a single blow to the ribs essentially ending a fight.

“The body looked weak,” said Lange. “I always go to body. There’s two places you can hit a guy – the head and the body. The body’s always a big thing.”

Preliminary Fights

In one of the preliminaries, the Washington area’s most promising female boxer was upset. Jennifer “The Bolivian Queen” Salinas of Manassas lost a six-round featherweight decision to Nathalie Forget of Montreal. One judge called the fight even. Two others gave the nod to Forget, 58-56.

Salinas (11-2) started strong, but by the third round was struggling against her stronger, fitter opponent. Forget (3-1) landed crisper punches in the middle rounds, contributing to Salinas’ fatigue.

Sensing she needed a knockout, Salinas, a personal trainer who has three children, rallied in the final round, landing many more punches than her opponent. But Forget was never in danger of going down.

Falls Church welterweight Todd “White Lightning” Wilson demonstrated his power with a stunning first-round knockout of Calvin “Peco” Faggins of Marshall, Va.

Landing a left jab from out of nowhere, Wilson (8-0) sent Faggins crashing to the canvas with little warning. Faggins (3-5-1) rose at the end of the count, but not quickly enough to satisfy the referee, who counted Faggins out at 1:07.

“My plan was to come in and box the first round, use my jab and feel him out, test the waters,” said Wilson. “It was the second left hand I threw and it just caught him right on the chin.”

It was the second KO for Wilson, a senior director of program delivery at Signature Government Solutions, a Herndon-based IT firm.

Another fight that failed to last one round was a technical draw between Tony “Mo Better” Jeter of Columbia and Lawrence Jones of Reston. When the two butted heads in the opening round, blood streamed from the forehead of Jeter (9-2-1), who was hit above the right eye. The ring doctor examined Jeter’s injury and within a minute determined that Jeter was unfit to continue. Jones is 3-2-2.  

With a flurry of blows, former junior welterweight champion DeMarcus “Chop Chop” Corley of Washington sent Damian Fuller of Detroit to the canvas in the fourth round. Fuller rose at the end of the count but could do little to stop the deluge as the fight was halted via TKO. After battling on even terms for three rounds, the 36-year-old Corley (37-13-1) struck quickly in the fourth against Fuller (30-8-1), earning the 22^nd knockout of his career.

Juan “The Savior” Rodriguez of Haymarket sustained the first blemish on his record, fighting to a draw with Dontre King of Cambridge, Maryland. Rodriguez (4-0-1) had his opponent in trouble in the opening round, but King (2-7-2) got his bearings and grew stronger as the lackluster fight continued through six uneventful rounds. 

Middleweight Zain “Tiger” Shah of Chantilly had little trouble against over-matched John “The Baptist” Terry of Virginia Beach, winning a four-round decision. Shah (3-0) remained stoic as Terry (3-17-3) acted curiously throughout the fight, mugging and playing to the crowd despite being dominated.

In the opening fight of the night, Brandon Quarles of Alexandria had a successful junior middleweight debut, earning a four-round unanimous decision over Vincent “The Beast” Batteast (1-3-1) of Annapolis.