Well the Wonderboy does it again but this time had his work cut out. He only had to fight once which was a disappointment. We hoped to fight several times but it didn't happen. His opponents were Charles Baines from Virginia and Russell Jones from Texas. Jones was proof that everything is bigger in Texas. Baines HAD a record of 11 wins and no losses. Jones had seven fights but not sure how many wins or losses.
  Stephen was seated in the second round of competition simply because he had the better record. This meant that Baines and Jones would have to fight and because this was a double elimination tournament the loser of this match would have to fight Stephen in the second round of competition. The winner would automatically move to the "title" round. The winner of the "Stephen"-"loser" match would go to the "title" round and fight for the KICK N. Am title.
   Baines started off moving around like Ali in the first round throwing some flashy punched and kicks, I guess trying to impress someone BUT it didn't work. Jones stalked him like a giant robot and simply ignored everything Baines threw. Jones fired some good body shots that seemed to take a lot of steam out of Baines. As the round progressed Baines rapidly ran out of gas. Baines claimed after the fight that it was the altitude that did him in, I think it was the solid body shots. The second round started like the first but quickly ended when Baines turned his back to Jones causing the ref to give a standing 8 count and his trainer to throw the towel in. Baines suffers his first humiliating loss but has a second chance when he fights Stephen in the second round of competition and Jones moves to the "title" round.  Well after all the talk on how Baines was going to be the guy to stop the Wonderboy and how he was going to do this and that NOW he has his chance. Well guess what, Baines's trainer pulls him out of the competition. He said that Baines wasn't ready for Stephen and that Baines had moved away from him to another city and was training himself etc,etc,etc. They will meet later!!!
   With Baines out this moves Stephen to the "title" round against Jones which was SUPPOSED to be fought on Wednesday evening. Keep in mind that Baines and Jones fought on Monday evening, Baines and Stephen was set for Tuesday BUT his trainer pulled him out which meant that Stephen would have another day of inactivity and would fight Jones on Wed. SO, I decided  that he wasn't going to vegetate another day and I planned a midnight training session which was soon after the Monday night competition. Well guess what, we get a call around 9:30 am on Tues. morning asking us where we are and that Stephen is supposed to weigh in. I said that he is scheduled to fight on wed. and that he wasn't supposed to weigh in. There reply was, no he is to weigh in today and that the schedule was changed (as was a lot of other things, not to get into it) and that they were going to finish the competition a day early. Now this really messed us up because Mrs. T. already booked an Elvis show for us to go to on Tuesday evening and now we are supposed to fight on Tuesday. What a MESS!!! Well we came to fight so I told them our dilemma and they said that they would put Stephen first fight of the night and we could still make it to the show, we agreed. In the mean time Mrs. T. was on the phone to the Las Vegas Hilton (where the show was and where the REAL Elvis performed for eight years) and got the date changed to Wed. You can count on Mrs. T. to make sure we didn't miss our show. Any way back to the fight.
   The fight started with Jones stalking Stephen like a robot and Stephen moving and hitting and hitting and moving. Jones tried to hit Stephen but when he punched or kicked Stephen either wasn't there or was punching and kicking Jones in the head. That went on for three rounds. The bell rang for the end of the fight, at least that is what we were told before the fight and that is what everyone else thought even some of the officials. We started taking our stuff off when Jone's corner man yelled over at us telling us that it was supposed to be a four round fight. We were told three and all the title fights on Monday were three rounds. Again we were told on TUESDAY (the day of the fight) that it was a THREE round title fight. The importance in this is you let it all hang out in the last round, which we were told was, AGAIN, the third round. The president of KICK stood up and said that it was a four round fight. The ONLY ones that knew it was a four round fight was Jones and the president of KICK. HUMMM.  WELL, we came to win a title so we put our stuff back on and beat on Jones another round to win a unanimous decision and the KICK N. Am title. There were SO MANY screw up's that it wasn't funny but with all that aside the trip was a success.  Now we set our sights on the I.A.S.K.A. World Championships in August. Wish us luck, better yet come with us, make a weekend out of it and support us and watch Stephen fight for a WORLD title!!!    It'll be FUN!!!!


Ray Thompson