ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey – Josh Popper lived up to his surname, popping the puffed-up Dillon Pumphrey at 1 minute, 12 seconds of the first round of their heavyweight bout.
The bout was part of a Boxing Insider Promotions undercard that took place Saturday at Tropicana Casino.
Popper, 6-0 (6 KOs), brought an aggressive attitude into the ring that is unlike anything he usually brings, upset by disrespect he received from Pumphrey, a West Virginia native, at the weigh-in. Pumphrey, who looked every bit of his 330lbs, rolled into the ring with Butterbean-inspired trunks and a similar bald haircut, and came out firing haymakers. Popper, a native of nearby Somers Point who now lives in New York City, trash-talked Pumphrey from the opening bell while tagging him with jabs and power shots from long range.
Popper connected with the knockout punch, a check left hook, that put Pumphrey down for a nine count. He beat the count but didn’t look interested in continuing, prompting the referee to wave off the fight.
Promoter Larry Goldberg didn’t hold back afterwards, telling BoxingScene, “I’m embarrassed of this one.”
Popper, who looked much more like a professional athlete at a sculpted 235lbs, also didn’t want to prolong his time in Pumphrey’s presence, saying afterwards, “He did not belong in the ring with me, so I wanted to get rid of him right away.”
Indeya Rodriguez scored her second upset on a Boxing Insider card, defeating Lia Lewandowski by unanimous decision. Two judges scored the fight 59-55, while the third had it 58-56, all for the Dallas, Texas, resident Rodriguez, 7-8-3 (1 KO). Lewandowski, a popular ticket seller from nearby Berlin, dropped to 3-1 (1 KO).
Rodriguez, who defeated Sulem Urbina in her first appearance on a Boxing Insider card in 2022, came out guns blazing in the opening round, putting pressure on the much taller Lewandowski from the opening bell. Lewandowski landed a few uppercuts to earn respect and some jabs to establish her distance. Rodriguez landed a couple overhand rights but not with the same consistency that Lewandowski was able to sneak in her own power shots. In the second round, Rodriguez rocked Lewandowski with a series of overhand rights that couldn’t miss, marking up her left cheek.
Lewandowski made an adjustment in the third, getting her head off the line as she threw her own shots, catching Rodriguez with shots right down the middle. Lewandowski’s offense was almost exclusively off her right hand, as she never brought back her left hook after the right.
Rodriguez stepped up her aggression in the fifth, ripping right hands to the head and body as Lewandowski switched southpaw while looking for defensive solutions. Rodriguez was able to keep the pressure up in the sixth, pushing Lewandowski around the ring with her raw aggression, though Lewandowski never stopped throwing back.
The 5ft 0in Rodriguez said she would like to compete at 108lbs moving forward.
Jacob Riley Solis never got out of first gear – and didn’t really need to – as he used his jab to pick apart the reticent Jeremy Ramos en route to a unanimous decision win. The scores were 59-55 on two cards and 60-54 on the third, all for Solis, 8-0-1 (6 KOs), of New York City, in their six-round middleweight fight.
Solis piled up the points throughout as Ramos, a 38-year-old from Colorado Springs, Colorado, was several steps behind, boxing as if he was in sparring-partner mode.
It took Ramos until the sixth round to muster any self-belief to put punches together, and his passivity left his coach exasperated. Ramos had his best round of the fight in the sixth, landing a left-hook counter that seemed to impact Solis, followed moments later by a right hand that got through unanswered. By then, the fight had already been decided, leaving only the decision to be announced.
Solis, 34, was fighting for the first time since last May, having been sidelined after a KO suffered in a public sparring session with Marquis Taylor last July.
Julio Sanchez III experienced more resistance while warming up on the pads than he got from Christopher Williams, blasting out the overmatched Rochester, New York, native at 2 minutes, 24 seconds of the first round.
Sanchez, 4-1 (3 KOs), of nearby Pleasantville, ran through Williams, 0-2, like a knife through hot butter, taking advantage of Williams’ lack of balance to land virtually everything he threw.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
