Coach Stephen Edwards believes that lightweight prospect Abdullah Mason should be okay moving forward after being dropped twice by journeyman Yohan Vasquez in the first round of their fight on November 8th at the Scope Arena in Norfolk, Virginia.
Edwards wants to see how Mason, 20, looks in his next fight to determine whether the two knockdowns will make him gunshy. Some fighters become afraid after being hurt, and this fear stays with them because they lose faith in their ability to take a punch.
As Edwards points out, Mason (16-0, 14 KOs) went for the knockout too early in the fight, throwing a big left uppercut and being caught by Vasquez’s money punch, the left hook, and dropped in round one.
Mason got up and dropped Vasquez (26-6, 21 KOs) with a left moments later. Vasquez injured his leg in the fall but, surprisingly, was able to come back and knock Abdullah a second time shortly before the end of the round.
“He went for the knockout a little bit early before the guy was softened up, and he ran into some big shots, and he got dropped,” said Stephen Edwards to MillCity Boxing, talking about Abdullah Mason getting dropped twice by the big puncher Yohas Vasquez in round one.
“He had the right temperament after being dropped. He stepped right back to the dude, and in the middle of the guy knocking him down twice, he was hurting the guy and wound up getting him out of there,” Edwards said about Mason dropping Vasquez in round one in between being knocked down twice in that round and then finishing him in the second.
Mason looked like he was trying for a blazing-fast first-round knockout right off the bat, and that’s where he got into trouble. Vasquez was too powerful of a fighter to be reckoned against. His power is better than the main event guy, Keyshawn Davis.
“One thing I look for when a fighter gets knocked down is does he become gunshy,” said Stephen. “Abdullah Mason, I still think he’s good. We just got to see if that’s something that keeps happening over and over again or if it was just that day where he was a little bit impatient and he ran into some shots.”
We’ll soon see how Mason comes back from this fight because Top Rank is likely to continue to match him against increasingly better opposition because he wants to fight for a world title in 2025. It would be nice to see Mason fight Keyshawn or Raymond Muratalla so that one of those fighters could be eliminated.
“There’s no need for an alarm. He didn’t turn around and turn into a kur [Shakur Stevenson?]. Do you know what I mean? He stepped right back to the dude and took him out. There are some guys that get hit, and they start funny acting. They start running and holding for the rest of the fight,” said Edwards,
Mason came right back after being dropped by Vasquez in round one and, moments later, knocked him down with a left hook to the head. Seconds before, Vasquez had staggered Mason with a check left hook, but that didn’t hold him back. Mason went after him and dropped him with that left.
Where Mason made a mistake in going for the kill, and he got caught with another short left hook that put him down for a second time. It was the same situation we saw with William Zepeda getting knocked down by a left hand he didn’t see coming by Tevin Farmer last Saturday night.
He’d been dominated and got caught. But then he got up and beat the living daylights out of Farmer for the remainder of the fight. Mason was in the same exact situation, but he didn’t take as much criticism because of his youth and being able to score a knockout in the second.
“You can just tell that they don’t have the ability to consume punishment, and they don’t have the heart to consume punishment because they fight in survival mode. Mason didn’t do that. I think he’s okay. Let’s see how things are moving forward,” said Edwards about Abdullah and how he returns in his next fight.
Mason kept fighting back after being initially dropped in round one by Vasquez, and he quickly dropped him. It was when Mason went for the finish; he dropped a second-time moments before the end of the round. However, Mason returned to drop Vasquez in round two with a left to the body to get the knockout.
Although Edwards doesn’t mention any specific fighters who go into survival mode, it’s probable that the one guy he’s thinking about is Devin Haney, who was holding nonstop after being hurt by Ryan Garcia in their fight last April. It was hard to watch Haney holding nonstop after getting clipped by Ryan in round seven.
