By Nick Bellafatto
After a couple of close rounds early on at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada tonight on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, the visibly larger yet undefeated Kevin Bizier (20-0, 13 KO’s) of nearby Saint-Emile would for the remainder look like the younger fighter he is, letting his hands go to outwork spotty 40-year-old veteran and former world champion Nate “Galaxy Warrior” Campbell (36-10-1, 26 KO’s) of Jacksonville, Florida.
Beginning to look his age as the bout progressed, Nate after eight complete rounds would complain of a back injury, opting not to continue a fight of which he was well behind on the scorecards and needing to come up with something miraculous in the late stages.
Stated Campbell, “I was never hurt. In the second round he was wrestling and he threw me, causing my back to go out. He fought a good fight. I took this fight on seven days notice. He’s a giant.”
In the process of stepping up the competition for the first time, Bizier not only retains his NABA welterweight title, but in addition he would garner the vacant IBF Inter-Continental welterweight title.
Doing what he had to do the Canadian fighter didn’t appear to be a world beater who would stir the rankings, but he would rather render the “The Galaxy Warrior” insignificant in his quest to get back into major title contention.
After toppling formerly undefeated Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz to gain multiple lightweight titles in early 2008 that would catapult him near the top of the 135 pound heap, Nate Campbell’s career would soon afterwards take a nose dive starting with the surrendering of those very titles on the scale in what should have been his first defense against the challenging Ali Funeka.
On the heels of that disaster Nate would subsequently come away with a no-contest outing involving current WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley, to then drop four of his next five by decision between mid 2010 to late 2011 to fighters the likes of Victor Ortiz and Danny Garcia amongst others.
Rebounding somewhat, the Floridian would get back in the win column with a TKO of ranked contender Victor Manuel Cayo, to then follow up with a unanimous decision victory over Krzysztof Szot in his own home country of Poland last Summer.
That brings us to this evening where Campbell only seemed to leave the impression that his days of competing against elite level fighters may be over and done. However, citing that his opponent was much bigger than he, Nate hinted at returning to the ring as a junior welterweight.
