Last night's boxing card featuring DeAndre "The Bull" Latimore (20-2) was billed as a showcase for the wealth of boxing talent in the St. Louis area.
Instead, the sparse attendance, the poor organization and some lackluster athletic performances demonstrated why the Gateway City will never be the boxing capital that it should be.
Only about 500 people showed up to the large Chaifetz Arena at St. Louis University. Most of the evening, promoted by Rumble Time Productions, was a fiasco.
The doors opened 20 minutes later than they were supposed to, the event started an hour after its scheduled time, and it featured numerous awkward delays between fights, with varying ridiculous explanations by the charmless and annoying ring announcer, Trevor Griffin.
The evening's main event, which didn't even start until midnight, featured local favorite Latimore's light-middleweight fight against 38-year-old journeyman boxer, Sammy Sparkman (21-19-1), who didn't show up to the prefight weigh-in, and who's name wasn't even included in any of the publicity for this event.
This was obviously set up to be a squash match, an easy, record-padding knockout for Latimore, who lost to Cory Spinks in his previous ring appearance.
However, victory over the veteran Sparkman seemingly wasn't as easy as this fight's promoters thought he would be.
Latimore, who the ring announcer introduced using unbelievable hyperbole like "the future of professional boxing," did manage to score more points than his experienced opponent, but he proved unable to bring any of his attacks to completion.
He had plenty of sloppy moments, where he was cornered and unable to stop barrages of punches from Sparkman.
Latimore did manage to pull off an impressive flurry or two, but he didn't dominate the fight the way the small hometown crowd clearly wanted him to.
Latimore won the 10-round bout by unanimous decision, which should help his won-loss record, but, watching the fight, he certainly didn't look very impressive or intimidating.
The quality of the other fights on the card varied greatly.
Willie Lee (17-5) vs. Alex "The Technician" Bunema (31-7-2)
This battle for the unclaimed North American Boxing Federation light middleweight belt turned out to be the true fight of the night.
It was the kind of clash you only witness in Hollywood movies, two masters of the craft trading hard punches and withstanding brutal attacks.
Bunema, who was born in the Republic of Congo and fought wearing an African native type skirt, fought from a crouch, and concentrated on attacking Lee's body.
Lee, who initially entered the ring dressed as the Grim Reaper, defended himself by repeatedly punching Bunema in the head with increasing frequency.
Despite being briefly knocked to his knees in the ninth round, Lee won the very close and fun-to-watch fight in a split decision.
Julius Fogle III (15-1) vs. Kevin "The Hitman" Engel (17-2)
Engel is a well regarded local light heavyweight fighter, although watching him last night, it is difficult to see why anyone pays any attention to him at all.
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