Published: March 16, 2008

Moore, Wolak At Wamu Theater

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Celtic Gloves staged their "A Fistful of Shamrocks" show at the WaMu Theater of MSG in NYC on 3/15. The night consisted of 10 bouts that were co-headlined by James Moore (15-0, 10 KO) from Brooklyn, NY taking on Juan Carlos Candelo (27-10-4, 18 KO) from Denver, CO and Pawel Wolak (20-0, 14 KO) who fought Dupre Strickland (18-3, 7 KO) from Slidell, LA. Both headline bouts were in the middleweight division and were scheduled for 10 rounds.

Pawel Wolak brought his aggressive style to the center of the ring at the opening bell and dominated Strickland completely. Wolak did show a weakness for being cut very easily and when the referee called a halt to the action at the 3:06 mark of round two (the downed fighter was not saved by the bell) he had cuts around both eyes and a bloodied nose.

Moore and Candelo (who went 12 rounds with Winky Wright in 2003) fought a back and forth match and divided the score in the first four rounds evenly. Candelo hurt Moore in the third with an overhand right, but Moore was able to keep away until he recovered. Although the judges at ringside scored the fight 97-92, 97-93, and 95-94 for Moore, my scoring was 95-94 for Candelo.

Moore, in my estimation, seemed out of condition (he was sucking air from the fifth round on and that sapped the power from his usually devastating body shots), wasn't able to avoid being trapped on the ropes by Candelo, and injured his right hand in the seventh. Candelo showed his 34-years of age by not going for a full three minutes. He was hit by Moore's lefts that backed him up. Candelo gave a profanity laced speech to the audience after the decision, with which he disagreed, was announced.