This Saturday, November 14, middleweight amateur rivals Thomas “The Souljah” Falowo (13-3, 8 KOs) of Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Russell Lamour (12-1, 5 KOs) of Portland, Maine will face each other at the Expo Center, Portland, Maine in a rematch following Falowo’s upset of Lamour earlier this year at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut.
The two New England natives faced each other several times as amateurs with Lamour emerging victorious in all but one of their amateur match-ups. Falowo topped Lamour in an eight-round unanimous decision victory on ESPN back in January handing the 32-year old Lamour his first professional loss.
Falowo attributes his success in this last fight to his pro-friendly style. He said, “Lamour had the upper hand in the amateurs because he has more of an amateur style. I always knew I had more of a pro style so once we got those little gloves I just knew that I would have the upper hand. I have more of a pro style. I am stronger than him. I have a better chin than him. I am more aggressive than him. I have more pop than him. My nature and my style of fighting, even when I was in the amateurs, has always been aggressive, which is kind of a fan-friendly style. I have definitely been working on my boxing skills and being able to be more effective with the aggressiveness but aggressive is just how I fight.”
According to Falowo’s trainer, Peter Manfredo, Falowo is in the best shape of his career. When asked about the 27-year old Falowo he said, “He is in tremendous shape right now. He’s ready. He is in great conditioning right now. He’s 27 years old. He’s in great shape and he’s beaten this kid before. He’s feeling really confident going into it that he can do it again. He gets up at 5:30 in the morning and does his run. He just keeps coming forward. He is an effectively aggressive fighter. He throws a lot of punches. He’s got a good chin.”
Lamour was always favored when these two met in the amateurs. Falowo used this to help feed his hunger and it pushed him to pull off the upset in January. He said, “He was the one in the amateurs that was always pampered and favored to win. They always wanted to bring him to the nationals and stuff like that. Because he was favored, I always felt like I was always the one that had to take the tougher fights to get noticed. Which is not a problem for me, I don’t mind but in January it was his first real test and he failed. I don’t care for the guy. I don’t have any animosity towards him but I really don’t care for him because he was brought up to be ‘The One’ and in reality he’s not that guy. He’s not a better fighter than me.”
