Darroll Wilson

Briggs and Tshabalala fights

In 1996, he competed in HBO's "Night of the young heavyweights". His unbeaten opponent, 25-0 Shannon Briggs was an amateur star and being touted as a future champ, he was the main feature of the card. In a huge upset, the Wilson took Briggs best shots in the opening rounds, turned the tide in the second, then knocked Briggs out for the full count in the third. This is by far the highlight #1 of Wilson's career. Briggs for a while had the reputation to be "chinny" but wasn't knocked down by George Foreman (he actually won a highly questionable decision in Foreman's last fight and became champion), lasted 5 with Lennox Lewis and the only other guy in 10 years to score a knockdown against him was Jameel McCline.

Later that year 1996, Wilson was brought back to HBO a fight later to meet another undefeated Top-prospect, the Samoan born, New Zealand Olympic bronze medallist David Tua, who had also won on the previous "young heavys" card. After two minutes of give-and-take the hard hitting Tua KO'ed Wilson in the first round with his lethal left hook.

Wilson had lost, but was still a semi-attraction, and got his second chance when he met once-beaten South African Courage Tshabalala. The two staged one of the most famous fights of the year 1997. In the first round Courage dropped Wilson with a stiff left jab 25 seconds into the fight. Things looked even worse for Wilson when he was dropped again in the third, this time much harder, with a right hand. Courage tried to finish in the fourth but Wilson fought back with the heart he showed in the Briggs fight and leveled his opponent for the count.

Decline

Wilson's next big fight was an upset loss to Terrence Lewis by fifth round TKO in 1998. Lewis was a tough and dangerous fighter with a respected right hand, however, the result was still a surprise. Wilson was no longer a fringe contender and dropped to journeyman status.

Wilson was again TKO'ed in his next fight to the hard hitting contender and Olympic silver medallist David Izon. In that fight, Wilson's own power surfaced early, and Izon was dropped in the first round, but Wilson couldn't finish the job.

Since then he slipped dramatically and never regained his old form. In 1999 he lost fights to Frankie Swindell and Zuri Lawrence, and was stopped in two rounds by the bigger and more experienced 2-time heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon.

Wilson most recently dropped a ten round decision to Jean-Francois Bergeron and Ray Mercer in 2005 and was stopped inside 4 rounds by Oliver McCall in 2006. Wilson's last professional fight was on 2 December 2006.