By Anthony Bosco
It may not have made major headlines in the New York dailies – one small one in fact – but Flushing's former featherweight champion of the world, Kevin Kelley, scored an impressive victory Jan. 22, putting himself back in the race for another shot at Prince Naseem Hamed.
Kelley, who left New York almost two years ago for sunny Las Vegas, has not been making much noise in the 126-pound division of late, a weight class he once owned. In fact, his less-than-spectacular ring performances following his truly fantastic effort during a TKO loss to Hamed in December 1997, have left many wondering if he would ever compete for a championship again.
When he was coming up, Kelley was the equivalent of a basketball blue chip prospect. Everyone who was everyone seemed to think the kid from Flushing had all the tools to make it big.
Slowly but steadily he climbed the ranks, leaving fighters such as Troy Dorsey, Raphael Zuniga, James Pipps and Harold Warren in his wake. Eventually he got his shot against Goyo Vargas in December 1993, and he won the WBC crown via unanimous decision.
But just more than a year and three title defenses later, Kelley was no longer champ, losing on his stool against Alejandro Gonzalez.
What followed was a string of unimpressive performances in which Kelley needed to pull out miracle after miracle to win. Such was the case against Derrick Gainer, who Kelley knocked out with a single punch while his eye was closed shut.
His guts, guile and perceived vulnerability is certainly what lured Hamed into giving Kelley a shot at the WBO title. Kelley almost scored the upset that night, but fell slowly out of the rankings after yet another defeat – to Gainer, and a handful of wins over nondescript foes.
Well, when I spoke with Kelley's longtime trainer Phil Borgia Monday, any doubts about where Kelley's career was headed seemed put to sleep, just as Kelley's last opponent was.
“Kevin looked great,” said Borgia of Kelley's most recent win, who spoke to me from his cellular phone as he was going through a car wash in Las Vegas, where the former Whitestone resident currently calls home.
Kelley not only looked good, he scored an impressive knockout of New Mexico's Frankie Archuleta, which all but sealed a date with International Boxing Federation champion Paul Ingle on March 11. Archuleta went into the bout with a 18-0-1 record and ranked No. 11 by the IBF and No. 12 by the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association.
Kelley, Borgia said, was handily winning the fight –
