"Both fighters can punch and are very durable, so I see it probably ending in a late round knockout."

The main event plus one to two undercard bouts will be shown on a tape delayed basis on UPN ch. 30 Oct. 30 from 10 to 11 p.m. ABC ch. 24 sports anchor Greg Gaston will host the show and handle the blow-by-blow while Jake Ford will be the color commentator.

Featured on the exciting seven bout undercard will be Southaven’s Christy Nickel, 4-1 (4 KOs) in a four-round bout against Cassandra Lindsey from Columbus, who is making her professional debut.

Lindsey’s trainer Oliver Miller said, "Cassandra has an amateur background and she knows what she is doing, and therefore it’s going to be a slugfest."

In a six round Jr. Lightweight bout between current USBA Regional Champion Antonio Davis, 13-1 (6 KOs) squares off against savvy challenger Terrance Roy, 8-6 (6 KOs) from Covington, Tenn.

"These two will go toe-to-toe from the minute the bell rings," said fight matchmaker Frank Herring.

Anthony and LaMont Peterson, along with heavyweight Charles Ellis, who were all finalists at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials this past February in Tunica, will see action in four rounders. All three fought at the Fedex Forum last month on the Roy Jones Jr. undercard.

Sardis native Pete Johnson will face undefeated Jr. Middleweight Curtis Hinton, 2-0, from Jackson.

Prize Fight, based in Southaven, promoted the record setting Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis Heavyweight Championship June 2002 and other big name matches. Prize Fight has sold out 20 straight boxing cards at Mississippi casinos. Due to their popularity, UPN ch. 30 is now televising the matches.

The first is the Northwest Mississippi Community College Rangers are defending north division champions.

The other is because the Rangers can clinch another north title when they host the Northeast Tigers Saturday, Oct. 23 in Senatobia. Kickoff for the homecoming contest is set for 2 p.m., at Bobby Franklin Field at Ranger Stadium.

Live radio coverage will be provided by WQLJ FM 93.7.

Both teams enter the conflict ranked in the latest NJCAA Top 20 poll. For the seventh consecutive week, Northwest is ranked No. 3 in the country. Northeast checks in at No. 20.

The Rangers, 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the north, are riding a 13-game win streak against opponents from the MACJC north division. Northwest has also won 19 of its last 20 regular season contests.

Northeast, 5-2 overall and 3-1 in the north, began the season with a record of 5-0, but has lost back-to-back games since then. The Tigers fell to Mississippi Delta 17-16 in Booneville, then lost to Jones County 24-14 last week in Booneville.

Northwest wants to stick with the same formula against Northeast that it has used the previous seven weeks – an explosive ground game and solid defensive play.

The Rangers lead the nation in rushing offense averaging 333 yards a game. Northwest is third in the country in total offense averaging 458.1 yards per contest.

Ranger tailback Eldra Buckley has been nothing short of spectacular so far this fall. Buckley, a sophomore from Charleston, leads the NJCAA in rushing with 157 yards a game. Buckley, who has 120 carries for 1099 yards, ranks second with 11 rushing touchdowns.

Buckley shares the spotlight in the backfield with quarterback Lewis Kuffuor.

Kuffuor, a sophomore from Atlanta, Ga., is third in the nation in total offense averaging 220.4 yards per contest and 14th in the country in rushing with 110.7 yards. Kuffuor has rushed for 787 yards and eight touchdowns on 86 carries. He has also completed 58 of 141 passes for 768 yards and six scores.

Defensively, Northwest is sixth in the country in total defense allowing just 210.7 yards. The Rangers are second in pass defense surrendering 91.9 yards per game.

Sophomore strong safety Jonathan Webster of Courtland leads the team with 70 total tackles, while freshman defensive end Jeramie Holifield of Hoover, Ala., and sophomore linebacker Roderick Brown of Taylor have 51 tackles each.
Brown and freshman defensive end DeVon Hicks of Trilby, Fla., lead the team with six quarterback sacks.

Sophomore cornerback Marcus Connor of Batesville is third in the state with four interceptions, while sophomore free safety Timothy Jones of Horn Lake has three picks this season.

You’ve heard me say all these "expert predictions" on who’s supposed to win a game aren’t worth their weight in toilet paper and that’s why we play the games and don’t just computer model them. A couple of cases in point are LSU at Florida and Tennessee at Georgia. Doing one between the hedges is always a real treat with over 92,000 pushing the decibel meter over 100.

The level for a jet engine running is around 125 and I have experienced that first-hand crawling under a running F-16 to pull the safety pins from the landing gear. I had on military hearing protection but it didn’t seem to help too much.

So when I say the levels on the field at Knoxville, Baton Rouge, Gainesville and Columbia come close, I do know what I’m talking about. Stanford Stadium was very loud on the field – for a while. But when Tennessee got to moving the ball like they didn’t against Auburn the week before the Georgia types knew it was going to be a long afternoon and it quieted down somewhat until the last quarter. It was a great game for TV too with the final outcome not sure until it was under 10 seconds left in the game.

While everything went well in the games last week, I did see where some other leagues had some problems with players deciding to do their imitation of Mohammed Ali and Joe Fraiser during some games.

In high school and college football, a player penalized for fighting is ejected from the game and possibly part of the next one. It all depends on when the foul occurred. If in the first half, the offender is out for the rest of that game only. If in the second half, he’s out for the rest of that game plus the first half of the next game.

If the foul occurs in the second half of the last game of the season, he will be ineligible for the first half of the next game of next year’s season provided he has eligibility left. If not, then he is required to run gassers every day for the next month – just kidding.

For the most part the players realize the seriousness of this and it is rare to eject a player from a game. Then it’s usually just a shoving match and we get them separated in a hurry.

If a penalty is required it will usually be an unsportsmanlike conduct without an ejection. We basically do everything we can to keep from having to eject a player from a game. The rulebook says we are not supposed to touch a player but times come when we have to grab a couple of facemasks and shove two away from each other.

We realize the people paying to see the game came to see the players in the game. Never is a situation involving unsportsmanlike conduct easy. I had a situation in a high school game once where a player from the team who was winning handily decided to start shoving and using some foul language toward an opposing player.

As I got to the two face-to-face players I grabbed the primary offender’s facemask and backed him away telling him to shut it down or go sit down the rest of the game. He backed down and did okay the rest of the game but then I had his head coach start in on me about "touching his player."

It sure seems tough to come out ahead sometimes but I know for a fact he didn’t want me to send this player out for the rest of the game and I handled it the right way. We can even send one out for a few plays when we feel like they need to cool down some.

Before a Tennessee at Alabama game a few years ago, I had to grab three Alabama players and push them back to their side of the 50 yard line which is the boundary for pre-game warm-ups after there’s less than 40 minutes before kickoff.

The two teams were both wound up tight and started mouthing and it almost erupted into something bad. That’s why we are required to be on the field to watch warm-ups one hour before kickoff.

One of the Alabama players was Freddy Milons and I told him he didn’t want to do anything dumb and not get to play in this one. Then I told him I had worked a high school game at Southaven the night before and saw his little brother who was a running back for Starkville at the time.

His demeanor changed as he asked, "Yeah? How’d he do?"