K.O.W. - Pearl Harbor for The American Boy

For the new year's first No Mas Knockout of the Week, I thought I would take you back to December 16 of last year and a fight that absolutely blew my mind - Jose Hernandez's eighth-round comeback knockout of The American Boy, Jason Litzau. As you probably know, Litzau is an exciting boxer/puncher out of St. Paul who has in the last year or so been slated for big things. As for Hernandez, he's a sometimes fighter, sometimes law-student from Chicago with impeccable form and a Golden Gloves pedigree. Based on the evidence of this fight, he's also as tough as the nails that all the other nails think are tough. As you'll see in the video above, he knocked Litzau down with a beautiful uppercut set-up and then an overhand right in the first round, and then came back with that same overhand right to straight-up knock Litzau out in the eighth.

But what you won't see in the above video is the intervening rounds two through seven, of which Hernandez did not win a single round. Litzau is powerful and fast and relentless, and Hernandez ate a shitload of lightning-quick combinations before he found the button with that overhand right. By the seventh, the HBO boys were calling for a stoppage. It was a hell of a gutsy performance by Jose Hernandez, and it only missed being the No Mas Fight of The Year by right of the fact that Pacquiao/Morales was an equally exciting bout of much greater overall import. As runner-up, however, I thought it deserved to be the first K.O.W. of 2007. Enjoy.