Big guys take spotlight at casino
Monday is Fight Night at Northern Quest Casino, and this time the big guys take center stage.
The Airway Heights casino will host its first professional fight card of 2007, with doors opening at 5 p.m. and the first fight entering the ring at 6.
The Pend Oreille Pavilion card will not be broadcast live. It will be taped and aired on a date and time to be announced.
The main event will feature a pair of heavyweights who have fought in the Pacific Northwest previously. Undefeated Alonzo Butler is scheduled to battle Troy Beets in the 10-round centerpiece.
Known as “Big Zo,” Butler is undefeated, with 24 wins in 25 professional fights. His lone draw came in his third fight on January 29, 2002, to Julius Jones at Level Nightclub in Miami Beach, Fla., and 18 of his wins have come by knockout.
Butler is no stranger to the room. The heavyweight scored a second-round technical knockout of Travis Fulton on May 31 during a nationally telecast card from Northern Quest.
Beets, who goes by the nickname “Basher,” is 12-9-1 in 22 professional fights. He’s lost five of his past six fights, including his past four straight. The last two losses have been by TKO.
Beets lasted 10 rounds in a May 2005 bout with Vassiliy Jirov, losing a unanimous decision to the heavyweight contender and former world cruiserweight champion at the Coushatta Casino Resort in Kinder, La.
Butler, who was born in Nashville, Tenn., and resides in Chattanooga, Tenn., has weighed in as heavy as 262 for a professional fight. For his last five fights he’s tipped the scale between 251 and 258.
Beets, born in Ocean Springs, Miss., and living in Jackson, Miss., will give up as much as 20 pounds. At his heaviest, Beets has fought at 229.
The opening bout is scheduled to feature two women, Janice Sims and Angie Dauenhuer, in a four-round match-up.
Also on the scheduled card is a welterweight bout between Osvaldo Rojas (2-1) and Jess Salway (2-2-1), and a middleweight battle between Kaseem Wilson (6-0-1) and Jeremiah Torres (7-14).