Witherspoon records KO

Dean Juipe

Monday, March 11, 2002 | 9:21 a.m.

The tension, for a minute or two, was palpable.

With a wrist lodged in the ring ropes and a doctor tending to him and emergency personnel having reached the apron, Darroll Wilson threw a scare into the small crowd that saw him take on former heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon Sunday at the Green Valley Ranch.

Wilson, a journeyman of sorts, was out cold, the victim of a devastating overhand right from Witherspoon in the second round. It would take him several minutes to recover, and even then he was headed for a precautionary CT scan at Valley Hospital.

The $10,000 he earned was hardly worth it.

"I don't want to see no one hurt," Witherspoon said later, not gloating a bit about the quick KO. "I'm concerned about anyone who gets hurt in the ring because I can be hurt. It could have gone the other way."

But it didn't, and Witherspoon reaps the dividends. Beyond the $20,000 he received and the improvement of his record to 53-11-1, the jovial 44-year-old slugger extended his own career at Wilson's expense.

"I guess it did," he responded, when asked if the abbreviated fight -- it had been scheduled for 10 rounds but lasted only 4:02 -- had served its purpose and given him some top-flight work. But there was some doubt.

After a lumbering opening round, Witherspoon connected with a right hook that buckled Wilson's knees and forced him to hold on until referee Kenny Bayless could intervene. Less than a minute later Witherspoon saw that Wilson was open for an even bigger right hand and he tagged him with it, cleanly ending the bout.

That Wilson was oblivious to a plight that included an entanglement in the ring ropes only added to the onlookers' concerns.

"I just let it go," Witherspoon said of the closing punch. "It wasn't perfect ... but it wasn't bad for a young old guy like myself."

Remarking that he continues to fight in pursuit of one last hurrah, Witherspoon said "I just want to get some respect and an opportunity to maybe get a big money fight or a title fight, so I can close the chapter."

Wilson, 35, dips to 26-6-2. He was a plus 180 in the Green Valley Ranch sports book, with Witherspoon a minus 220 favorite.

In other notable fights on the card, Gerson Guerrero, 24-4, retained his North American Boxing Federation flyweight title with a second-round knockout over Mariano Gonzalez, 17-6-2; and Olympic gold medalist Mohamad Abdulaev, 6-0, stopped Jesus Santiago, 5-2, at 2:33 in the fourth round of a welterweight bout scheduled for 6.