Boxing results from the weekend, some excitement, some major blunders
It appeared Richard Abril (R) had won this match over Brandon Rios (L), especially at this point in the fight. It was another classic bout between the brawler, Rios, and the boxer, Abril.
Once again, the sport of boxing’s supporters (sometimes apologists) had to take one on the chin. We can go weeks without any controversy and then all of a sudden it’s back to square one where either there was a ridiculous decision by a judge or judges or a referee appeared to be aiding and abetting an in-house fighter.
We end up asking ourselves, ‘Are they on someone’s payroll, losing their eyesight or just asinine?’ After all the effort put forth by the boxers, how dare they be so mindless. And, what about all the ridiculous mismatches this weekend?
Saturday, April 14, 2012
After Tyson Fury (L) did some experimenting with his fighting stance, he switched back to his regular stance and had no problem dispatching the shorter and much older Richard Rogan (R).
Tyson Fury (18-0, 13 KOs) scored a fifth round KO of a 40-year-old cab driver by the name of Martin Rogan (14-3, 7 KOs) to claim the vacant Irish heavyweight title at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The 6’9” Fury surprised everyone by fighting in a left-handed stance and wouldn’t you know it, he was ineffective.
In Round #3, Fury floored Rogan with a straight left and finished him with a body shot in round five. Even with the handicap, Mr. Rogan, who’s old enough to be Fury’s dad, never had a chance. At 245 3/4 pounds, Fury was fighting at the lightest weight of his professional career while Rogan weighed 228 pounds. Fury entered the match as the #11 ranked heavyweight in the world while Rogan, a 7.75/1 betting underdog, was unranked. To sweeten the pie, Rogan had not fought in 18 months and hadn’t beaten an opponent with a winning record in over three years.
Middleweight Craig McEwan (20-2, 10 KOs) won an eight round, 80-72 point decision over 32 year-old Paul Morby (6-13-1, 0 KOs) at Meadowbank Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the first time McEwan had fought in his native Scotland.
The event was promoted by former world title holder Alex Arthur (31-3, 21 KOs), who managed to outpoint Michael Frontin (3-13-1, 0 KOs) over eight rounds in a jr welterweight bout.
Why would these so-called top contenders fight gents of this ilk? In a little over four years, Mr. Morby, who has fought 14 times, has but one win. At least Frontin had three wins in his last 20.
After his 20th win, Emilio Bojorquez (C) was joined by his number one fan. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Locally, two San Diego boxers headed south to the Ernesto Rufo Auditorium in Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico for some easy wins.
Light welterweight Adrian Vargas (6-0-1, 4 KOs) of National City, CA made quick work of Refugio “Pichon” Contreras (1-7-3, 1KO) of Tijuana, Mexico by stopping him at the 2:26 mark of the first round. His stablemate from the Undisputed Fitness & Training Center in San Diego’s Downtown,
Emilio Bojorquez (20-1-0, 14 KOs), had an even easier time when he ran roughshod over Agua Prieta, Mexico’s Martin Rodriguez (4-6, 2 KOs). Rodriguez went down several times before the bout was stopped at the 1:15 mark of the second round of their scheduled six round welterweight match.
Intimidation factor: Who in their right mind would dare challenge this demon? Claudia Lopez showed her mettle by ignoring Kaliesha West's pre-fight attire. Some people wouldn't have. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Claudia Andrea Lopez (left) was no match for the talented Kaliesha West (R) shown here landing a left hook to the side of Lopez's head. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Between rounds, Juan West (L), Kaliesha West's dad and trainer talks over strategy with his daughter. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Favoring her inside game, Claudia Lopez (L) came on in the closing rounds and as you can see landed this nasty right cross to the side of Kaliesha West's head. Photo: Jim Wyatt
After winning a mixed decision over Claudia Lopez, Kaliesha West (L) is adorned with the championship belt. Her father and coach, Juan West, is standing to her right. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Also on the Erik Morales Promotional Group fight card was a WBO female World Bantamweight title match between Kaliesha “Wild Wild” West (14-1-3, 4 KOs) of Moreno Valley, California and 32 year-old, southpaw Claudia Andrea Lopez (18-5-0, 4 KOs) from Trelew, Chubut, Argentina.
Throughout this 10 round affair, Lopez got hit by two, sometimes three punches more than her opponent and yet one judge ended up with a draw on his scorecard. Fortunately, they had two sane judges officiating the match and they, like the full compliment of patrons, scored the bout, 98-92 in favor of West.
Kaliesha’s father and trainer, Juan West, said after the match that his daughter looked good considering she had to lose so much weight (eight pounds) in less than a week.
In her last title defense on August 20, 2011, West fought 19 year-old Jessica Villafranca of Nicolas Romero, México City, Mexico and experienced a boisterous anti-American crowd in Colima, Mexico. Despite the backlash, she won an unanimous decision. With Rosarito being neutral ground and a lot closer to Los Angeles than Argentina, Saturday’s patrons, aside from the many West family members, were unbiased.
Also on the undercard:
With his opponent, Patricio Camacho kneeling and receiving his second 10 count from the referee, Pedro "Jibran" Guevara (back left) awaits the outcome. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Light flyweight Pedro "Jibran" Guevara (R), with the movie star good looks, has his arm raised in victory after defeating Patricio Camacho to regester his 14th KO victory. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Pedro “Jibran” Guevara (17-0-1, 13 KOs) made a successful defense of his NABF light flyweight title by dismantling Patricio Camacho (13-7-1, 10 KOs). Guevara varied his combinations to confound Perez who was knocked off his feet twice.
Super bantamweight prospect Oscar Gonzalez is shown making his ring entrance. Photo: Jim Wyatt
In one of the shortest bouts of the evening, Manuel "Zurdo" Aguilar goes down on one knee after getting hit by a devastating left hook to the midsection. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Oscar "Finito" Gonzalez (R) has his arm raised in victory after he stopped Manuel Aguilar at 2:21 of the second round by landing three extremely hard blows to Aguilar's midsection. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Super bantamweight Oscar “Finito” Gonzalez (17-1-0, 11 KOs) of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico made quick work of Manuel Aguilar (19-10-0, 13 KOs) of Tijuana, B. C., Mexico. The first of three left hooks to the midsection had Aguilar grimacing and going down on one knee. The next two, in the same area, must have been unbearable because Aguilar’s night ended early, at 2:21 of the second round.
Most likely the best contested match of the evening involved Alberto "Metro" Guevara (R) and Khabir Suleymanov (L) who spent the entire bout pummeling each other. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Once again, as a precautionary measure, the referee stopped the bout to have the ring doctor look over the cuts on Khabir Suleymanov's face. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Alberto Guevara of Mazatlan, Sinaloa has his arm raised in victory by referee Juan Manuel Rincon after defeating the formidable Khabir Suleymanov of Los Angeles, CA. Photo: Jim Wyatt
Bantamweight Alberto “Metro” Guevara (15-0-0, 6 KOs) of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico had his hands full with the persistent Khabir Suleymanov (13-2-0, 6 KOs) of Los Angeles, CA by way of Chelyabinsk, Russia.
This was a war. After getting tagged by the Suleymanov lefts, Guevara came right back with the straight rights. At one point both fighters went to the canvas at the very same time.
Meanwhile, Suleymanov used every dirty trick in the book from pushing Guevara’s head down to hitting him behind the neck. Holding, shoving, tackling, there wasn’t any tactic that he didn’t employ.
All the while, Guevara would counter with his best shots, shots that bloodied and marked up his opponent’s face but in no way slowed him down. Suleymanov kept coming as if Guevara was using a pillow to hit him.
In the end an unanimous decision for Guevara was never in doubt.
After being quite elusive in Rounds one and two, super flyweight Arcadio “Carcario” Salazar (7-11-2, 0 KOs) of Agua Prieta, Mexico, slowed just enough in the third round for Tijuana’s Jose “Hollywood” Estrella (11-3-1, 9 KOs) to land a hard body shot to drop Salazar. Salazar has fallen on difficult times; in his last 12 matches he has won only once.
There was also a super middleweight contest in which Brian Sanchez earned a four round unanimous decision over Edgar “Roca” Bojorquez. Sanchez of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, returns home with a record of (10-0-1, 7 KOs) while Bojorquez of Tijuana drops to (3-3-3, 2 KOs).
There was also a pay-per-view event from HBO featuring Juan Manuel Marquez (53-6-1) giving Serhiy Fedchenko (30-1) a boxing lesson at the New Mexico City Arena, Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. They had it tied together with a Co-featured bout of Brandon Rios (29-0-1) winning a controversial split decision in a lightweight match against Richard Abril (17-2-1) at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For the fans who watched the Rios fiasco, many had Abril winning the match. He put on a clinic, even when fighting in close, Rios’ favored method. Abril stood there with his right hand up and blocked most every punch while countering. In reality, it was Rios’ eating of punches from the outside and then floundering on the inside, that made him look so bad.
As in past fights, Rios, a card carrying brawler, resorted to rabbit punches to the back of Abril’s neck and on occasion did land a few solid left hooks. All in all, Abril was a lot busier and accurate and clearly should have won this fight.
Judge Jerry Roth scored the bout 116-112 for Rios, Glenn Trowbridge scored it 115-113 for Rios and Adalaide Byrd scored it 117-111 for Abril. How is it possible for one judge to see Rios winning only three rounds, yet another judge saw him winning eight? That’s quite a disparity.
Back and forth went the momentum in this hotly contested light welterweight match between Mauricio Herrera (L) of Riverside, CA and Mike Alvarado (R) of Thornton, Colorado.
Also on this talent laden fight card, light welterweight Mike Alvarado (32-0-0, 23 KOs) won a 10 round unanimous decision over Mauricio Herrera (18-1-0, 7 KOs) of Riverside, CA in what proved to be the most action-packed bout of the evening.
For most of the fight, the two warriors stood toe to toe trading blows. It wasn’t until the eighth round that Alvarado started to control the fight. That’s when Herrera’s left eye had swollen shut and much of the steam was gone from his punches. To summarize, it was Alvarado proving to be the more durable fighter and he won by scores of 97-93, 96-94 and a curious 99-91.
After his latest performance, Alvarado, now 33-0, is hoping to get a fight against Brandon Rios or Juan Manuel Marquez.
It doesn't happen that often but here we see Mercito Gesta (L) with his hands down getting smacked by an overhand right from Saturday's opponent Oscar Cuero (R).
The fourth bout of note involved another light welterweight, Mercito “No Mercy” Gesta of San Diego by way of Mandaue City, Cebu, Philippines. At the 1:38 mark of Round #8, Gesta (25-0-1, 13 KOs) stopped Oscar Cuero (15-8-0, 12 KOs). Cuervo went down in both rounds seven and eight in this one sided affair. Since this was Cuero’s sixth loss in his last eight, some people are claiming Gesta, who has now fought 26 times, has yet to face a top contender.
In this photo, we see Alan Sanchez (C) and referee Joe Cortez (L) studying the response from Artemio Reyes (R) after he received a solid overhand right from Sanchez.
Also of special note, at the The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 21 year-old Alan Sanchez of Fairfield, CA, a 2 to 1 underdog in his rematch with Artemio Reyes, Jr., got himself a knockout victory at 2:08 of Round #1.
After a right uppercut snapped Reyes’ head back and sent him into the ropes, Sanchez attacked and threw a barrage of punches while Reyes attempted to cover up. After a couple more right hands, down went Reyes in his corner. Referee Joe Cortez immediately stepped in and called a halt to the bout without beginning a count.
When not training, Reyes is the manager of the family restaurant, El Taquito in Colton, CA, as well as an accounting student at the University of California Santa Barbara. Up until eight days ago, his primary focus had been the day-to-day care of his father, Artemio Sr., who had been comatose since 2008 after being hit by a tractor trailer while driving to pick up his son. Artemio Sr. passed away just one week prior to the rematch.
In their first match, Reyes landed stinging right hands to dominate the opening round. Then Sanchez closed the gap in the second by putting together combinations. Reyes came right back in the third. Their toe-to-toe exchanges at the center of the ring had the crowd on their feet.
In the fifth round, Sanchez staggered Reyes with a right, backed him up for the first time and closed his right eye by the end of the round. The fireworks continued in the sixth with Sanchez landing right hands while Reyes fired upper cuts and right counters. The 30 second exchange to close the show had the crowd screaming. After tallying up the scorecards, Reyes received the split decision victory with scores of 59-55, 56-58 and 58-56.
To be sure, these two special fighters will meet again.
