'Golden Greek' Wins Decision in Junior Middleweight Bout

The crowd was on its feet from the time his name was announced for his pre-fight entrance at Friday night's junior middleweight clash opposite left-hander Stephen Franklin of Martinsburg, West Virginia.

The energetic, 31-year-old Reisterstown resident nicknamed "The Golden Greek" was about to put on a spirited display.

Spurred on by the presence of his wife Kendra, his three children and fans' chants of his other alias, "Bull," Elias Bouloubassis out-hustled, out-maneuvered and out-boxed Franklin over the course of a four-round unanimous decision victory.

Bouloubassis won every round of the bout according to the cards of the three ringside judges, whose identical scores of 40-36 improved his record to 6-0-5, with four knockouts, dropping the 25-year-old Franklin to 1-5, with one knockout.

"These tickets are not cheap, and we're in a recession, so these people came to see a fight, and I wanted to give them one," said Bouloubassis, a 1998 Overlea High graduate who served eight years as a U.S. Marine. "I sold well over 100 tickets for this fight, and, honestly, a lot of them were to people who had never bought tickets to my fights before."

At least one of them was an unknown, older man of Greek heritage who embraced him and congratulated him in that language after the fight.

"He was saying, 'Good job. Let's go to Atlantic City,'" said Bouloubassis. "I told you, the Greek people, we're a proud people. I had never met the guy in my entire life."

Bouloubassis said his children, Jalen, 13, Jacob, 6, and, Jayda, 5, never had seen their father fight prior to Friday night.

"This is the first time that my kids were there. I had retired a couple of years ago when I was putting my son, Jacob, to bed. And he said, 'I want to see you fight,'" said Bouloubassis, an inventory manager and fleet sustainability officer at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

"I heard the Rocky music go off in my head, and I was about to go run that night," said Bouloubassis. "They're my life. They're my inspiration for everything that I do."

So much so that Bouloubassis has sacrificed training to spend time with his children, coaching them and transporting them to and from school-sponsored events.

"I train, but I want to be a father to my kids. So I was getting into the gym very, very late. Sometimes, I was the only one in the gym," said Bouloubassis.

"I pretty much trained myself for this fight, so I had to push myself," said Bouloubassis. "When I was in the corner between rounds a lot of times during the fight, I would look up in the stands at my kids during breaks, and that gave me that extra umph."

Bouloubassis said that he was grateful to the two men who worked his corner, one of whom was his manager, James Hogan. The other was amateur fighter Paul Yohn.

Although his corner men collectively shouted to Bouloubassis, "Don't back up,"  "Jab your way in," and "Go to the body," he acknowledged he did not consistently press his advantage on the occasions when he appeared to have hurt Franklin.

"This was my first fight back since September, so I pretty much trained myself for this fight. And also, I got dropped in my last fight very hard," said Bouloubassis, referring to a draw with South Carolina's Kelvin Kibler.

"That was the first time in my career where I legitimately went down as an amateur or a professional," said Bouloubassis. "But the guy caught me, and he hurt me, so I thought that I came back, and I thought that I won the fight, but I got a draw. So I had that in my head tonight."

As a result, there were times when Bouloubassis took the pedal off of the gas and played it safe against Franklin.

"When I would get in there in the middle, I wasn't sure if I was back," said Bouloubassis. "I said, 'This guy is a tough fighter, let me save some for the end.'"

There was, nevertheless, constant movement from the energetic Bouloubassis, who rarely absorbed any significant blows even as he sometimes switched to the southpaw stance against his taller, rangier left-handed opponent.

"I wasn't tired. And I knew that he would not get tired. I knew that I could move on him. He's tough and he comes forward. So I knew that if I gave him angles, I knew that I could get him," said Bouloubassis, who has endured asthma.

"I didn't have the mitt-work during training, so my punches weren't crisp," said Bouloubassis. "I did have that third round where I knocked his mouthpiece out and the stopped the fight for a little while to put it back in."

Bouloubassis said he will take time before his next bout to assess and review his performance.

"I give myself a 'C.' I give myself credit because I pretty much trained myself for this fight. I had some other opportunities, but I couldn't land that big shot to end the night," said Bouloubassis.

"So I've got some homework to do. I'm going to go back and review the tape," said Bouloubassis. "This time, I'll have a trainer. I'll say, 'Let's work on this.' The next time, I'll make the opportunities count."