BETHLEHEM, Pa.  – ShoBox: The New Generation celebrates its 14th anniversary with an action-packed card.  

Opening the ShoBox:The New Generation telecast, Samuel “The Main Event” Clarkson (15-3, 9 KOs) of Dallas, Texas delivered a huge upset by knocking down Jerry “The King’s Son” Odom (13-2, 1 NC, 12 KOs) of Washington, D.C. three times before the referee, Shawn Clark,  stopped the fight at 1:15 of the third round.

The scheduled super middleweight 10-rounder started strong, with big lead rights and uppercuts from Odom and strong body shots and good connections from Clackson. Odom seemed to take the lead in the second, breaking Clarkson down, landing bigger shots and looking for an opportunity to put his power to good use, but Clarkson fought back and finished the round by knocking Odom down for the first time in his career with a right uppercut. In the third and final round, Clarkson led from the get go knocking Odom down twice more before the referee stopped the fight.

“This is a blessing, my team and I struggled a lot to get here. This win is really a blessing” said Clarkson. “We did what we had to do, we overcame the distractions and we won. I wasn’t supposed to win, but you can’t judge a book by its cover and a fighter by his record.

“I studied [Jerry] Odom in and out, and everything I expected, he did.

“We’ve been working on the uppercut for almost six weeks. I met a lot of great orthodox fighters before, and one thing that I noticed is that when a fighter comes with a right hand, the real bonus comes after with the right uppercuts. So, when I saw him [Jerry Odom] leaning in and his head wasn’t moving with his punches, I would just slip in and throw an uppercut and he was there on the canvas.

“In the world of boxing, sometimes you get caught. Tonight, I got caught,” Odom said. “I just want to thank all my supporters, this is just a small setback and I will be back.”

“[Samuel] Clarkson stole the show. I think he was the biggest underdog on the card coming in and he exposed [Jerry] Odom,” said Farhood. “Odom was the bigger puncher; Clarkson was the one with the suspect chin. Turned out to be exactly the opposite, a good example of the fact, ‘You never know in boxing.’”