On Thursday October 13, 2005, Kassim "The Dream" Ouma (21-2-1,  Boxingtalk #4 at junior middleweight) will attempt to bounce back an unexpected nightmare that saw him lose his IBF title to Roman "Made in Hell" Kazmarin on July 14. For hios comeback, Ouma will take on Alfredo Cuevas (25-7-1) at the Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ. HBO Latino will televise, and this time, the Ugandan hopes fair much better than the unanimous decision loss to Ouma, only the second loss of his career. Ouma whose most recent trainer Johnny Bumphus just recently underwent surgery will be trained once again by Ronnie Shields.

Ouma, Shields, and Golden Boy partner Bernard Hopkins recently discussed Ouma's upcoming fight on a conference call. Shields was asked if there was anything he was going to try to change in Ouma's style and he responded, "I am just going to try to add to what he is already doing and that's what we've been working on. You know I saw the last fight and... he wasn't punching the
way he normally punched. So now I am just adding few things to the things he already do, four weeks is not a long time to change anybody."

Ouma himself said, "I feel ready for this fight... I'm going to take my time," When asked about what happened against Karmazin, a fight he was expected to win, Ouma stated that he had a lot going on in his personal life and that he was also a little under the weather but he wasn't making any excuses for his performance. When questioned about whether or not he would be willing to fight Daniel Santos, Kassim not very shockingly responded, "Yes, in a
second."

Later he was asked whether this fight was going to have a direct effect on his ranking with any particular sanctioning body, and Hopkins immediately stepped in to field the question, "It all depends. Boxing is about politics, you know that just as well as I know that, and I think that was kind of unfair to ask him if that he wins the fight what would it put him at in the ratings you're talking about a situation in which he has no control. Golden Boy will lobby as much as we can to make sure he is in a position he should be in." Still, if Ouma beats Cuevas, he will be on the right track.

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