On Friday morning, Wendy Toussaint was driving his school bus route with no real plans for the weekend. That changed quickly. On Saturday night, he was fighting inside the ring at Madison Square Garden.
Toussaint, who drives a bus for the Deer Park school district and is from Huntington, was asked to step in when WBC middleweight champion Carlos Adames pulled out of his fight against Austin Williams. Toussaint had been training for a fight at the Paramount in late February but jumped at the opportunity to fight at the Garden.
After 10 rounds, Williams came away with a unanimous decision, winning by scores of 99-90 and 98-91 twice.
It was no easy task for Toussaint. Williams is a southpaw and the eighth-ranked middleweight in the world, and Toussaint (17-4) never seemed to get on track during the fight.
“I was able to take his punches, but I felt the difference in going up in weight,” he said. “I felt I did the best I could on less than a day’s notice.”
The Garden card was headlined by Brooklyn’s Teofimo Lopez, who was defending his WBO super lightweight title against Shakur Stevenson.
Williams (20-1) worked sharply behind his jab in the early rounds and Toussaint launched some solid right-hand counters. But Williams’ pressure prevented Toussaint from mounting an effective offense. Williams dropped Toussaint with a right uppercut late in the fourth.
Toussaint had his best round in the sixth, rocking Williams with an overhand right.
“We found out 10 a.m. Friday morning,” said Kevin Zaharios, Toussaint’s trainer. “I called Wendy from my job and he was still driving the school bus. We talked and we both said let’s do it. We feel we can fight with anybody when we have the right time to get ready. So we said we can’t let this opportunity pass.”
Toussaint thanked Zaharios and promoter Joe DeGuardia for securing the opportunity. “I am continuing to build my legacy and show the boxing world what I am capable of doing. On to the next fight,” he said.
The fight took place at super middleweight, two divisions above Toussaint’s usual weight class of 154 pounds. Toussaint weighed 167.7 pounds and Williams weighed 168.
“Even though we were fighting two weight classes above ours, we feel it was an opportunity for the world to see Wendy go to work,” Zaharios said.
Toussaint, 33, last fought in June, defeating then-unbeaten Joseph Hicks to win the IBF-USBA junior middleweight championship.
In the first title bout of the evening, Brooklyn’s Bruce Carrington scored a ninth-round knockout of Carlos Castro to win the vacant WBC featherweight title. Carrington landed a beautiful four-punch combination, punctuated by a left hook-right hand to drop Castro. He was counted out at 1:29 of the round.
According to Top Rank, Carrington’s promoter, of all the world champions from Brownsville, Brooklyn — Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Danny Jacobs, among others — Carrington is the first to win his title at the Garden.
Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller won a split decision over Kingsley Ibeh in a 10-round heavyweight bout. The scores were 97-39 twice for Miller and 96-94 for Ibeh.
In a welterweight bout, Kevin Castillo (6-2-1) came off the canvas to upset unbeaten Ziyad Almaayouf (7-1-1) over eight rounds. The scores were 78-73, 77-74, 77-74 for Castillo.
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