Boxing
Terminator next for 'Baby' Joe
by MATT KRUEGER Reporter

Town of Tonawanda heavyweight "Baby" Joe Mesi will deal with a knockout machine in his Feb. 22 bout at Mountaineer Race Track in Chester, W.Va.

George "The Terminator" Linberger will face Mesi in the 10-round, main event. Linberger (29-8-1) has 25 knockout victories and faced current WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev back in 2001. He lost a first-round knockout.

"He's coming to win," Mesi's father and manager Jack Mesi said. "He's coming to knock Joe out."

Linberger's last bout was a four-round, split-decision win over Eric "Butterbean" Esch (76-7-4) in October 2005.

A standout football player in college, Linberger won the Mid-American Conference MVP as an offensive guard at the University of Toledo and played professionally with the Las Vegas Sting of the Arena Football League.

This is the fifth fight in Mesi's comeback from a two-year medial suspension. His last fight was a four-round, unanimous-decision victory over Jason Weiss. It's also the first time Mesi fought a 10-round bout since his unanimous decision win over Vassiliy Jirov in 2004. Mesi suffered a brain bleed in that bout that led to his suspension by the Nevada State Athletics Commission.

After four fights against lackluster opponents - Weiss, Dennis Matthews, Stephane Tessier and Ronald Bellamy had a combined record of 29-39-4 - Mesi is looking to climb back up the rankings after this fight. At the time of his injury, he was the No. 1 contender to the WBC heavyweight title and a top-10 fighter in the WBA, WBO and IBF.

"Joe is really focused on this fight," Jack Mesi said. "After this we're going to apply for a license in New York State so we can come back home to fight."

This fight was originally scheduled to be a co-headliner with the Hasim Rahman-Ray Mercer bout. But that match went back and forth with Rahman (41-6-2), a former two-time world heavyweight champion, saying it was on, then it was off, then it was back on and, finally, off for good.

Mercer (34-6-1) is also a former world heavyweight champion.

The idea behind having Mesi and Rahman co-headline a card was to set up a showdown between the two later in the year. That's a fight Rahman has wanted for four years, since Mesi became a name, and one Mesi said he is open to as well.

e-mail: mkrueger@beenews.com