ATLANTIC CITY - Polish heavyweight contender Mariusz Wach knew he was going to win his fight against Tye Fields Saturday before the opening bell.
As soon as he left the dressing room at Resorts Casino Hotel and began to make his way to the boxing ring, nearly 1,000 fans from Poland and North Jersey erupted in cheers and chants while reaching out to slap him on the back.
"At that point," Wach said through a translator, Somers Point middleweight Patrick Majewski, "I knew there was no way in (heck) I was going to let him beat me."
Wach (27-0, 15 KOs), the No. 8-ranked heavyweight in the WBC, produced deafening roars inside Resorts' Superstar Theatre with a sixth-round technical knockout over Fields (49-5, 44 KOs).
Wach, a native of Krakow, Poland, now living in North Bergen, began to take command in the fifth round behind a barrage of punches that left Fields stumbling toward his corner with a bloody nose.
He jumped on Fields in the sixth, landing a pair of strong rights that put Fields on the canvas. Fields, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, managed to get to one knee before referee Benji Estevez wisely halted the fight at one minute, 44 seconds.
"He wasn't going to be able to continue," Estevez said. "I could have kept counting to 10, but I didn't want to disrespect (Fields). A few more seconds wasn't going to help him."
