Carrillo vs Lopez, Szymanski vs Talarek: the reason we love the Sport of Boxing

Six days prior to the Carrillo vs. Senteno bout above, in far off Spodek, Katowice, Poland, Polish boxing fans were claiming they had just witnessed the greatest fight ever. In that classic match, Patryk Szymanski (19-1, 10 KOs) and Robert Talarek (23-13-2, 16 KOs) slugged it out in a bout in which there were 10 knockdowns all within five rounds before Taralek pulled off the upset victory over a man who was 10 years younger. Over his seven-year boxing career, the 35-year-old Taralek has now fought in 14 different countries and held three European Titles. At the time of his winning TKO victory, Talarek held a slim 35-34, 35-34, 34-34 edge on the scorecards.

The two wildly entertaining, roller-coaster rides are the latest of many hotly contested matches available for boxing fans to see close up or view on-line. When comparing the two, we liked the classic match-up at The Big Punch Arena on the latest Borizteca Boxing Promotion’s fight card. In their 5th bout of the evening, the two 5’6″ tall bantamweights went toe to toe, round after round. In one corner you had Jose Maria Carrillo (6-0-1, 6 KOs) Global ID 827428 coming all the way from Manteca Calif. to face Jose Eduardo Lopez Senteno (3-0) Global ID 843178 from nearby Rosarito, B. C., Mexico. The business of traveling such a long distance for a fight says a lot about a boxer’s confidence. Carrillo was confident enough to travel the 500 plus miles to take on Centeno in front of his Rosarito faithful.

While listening to their final instructions, the young men glared intently into the eyes of their opponent to let him know, they were about to face a serious as a heart-attack, well-schooled fighter. Like two gamblers holding pocket aces, each young man was letting the other know he had no chance of coming away with this victory. Either Jose Maria Carrillo (r) from Manteca Calif. or Jose Eduardo Lopez Senteno (l) the hometown favorite, would be just another stepping stone in their opponent’s career.

Early on, with both young men throwing caution to the wind, it was Carrillo who did the better job of slipping punches and managing distance to land more of the scoring blows. His only unfavorable period came when the naturally orthodox fighter twice switched to the southpaw stance. As a result of that switching of stances, Carrillo got caught three times with Senteno’s solid left hooks.

Midway through their bout, we saw Senteno look across the ring at Carrillo, perhaps concluding he was fighting some sort of freak of nature, perhaps an octopus on steroids. The further they went into the fight, Carrillo’s exceptional conditioning became a factor and his punches came fast and furious from every imaginable angle.

After attending so many great matches over the years, bouts like ones above often remind you of a previous high, another extremely competitive match like the one we witnessed back in 2012 when Carlos “Baby” Castenada took on Luis “Pantera” Nery at Las Pulgas in downtown Tijuana. At that time, both young men were considered the very best in their weight class. Nery went on to win that match and later travel to Japan to become the Bantamweight Champion of the World. If Carrillo or Senteno continue on their current path, no doubt it won’t be long before we’ll be seeing them battling for a world title.

In this, the most entertaining “Bout of the Night” two of the judges scored the bout 58-55 for Jose Maria Carrillo while the third judge, who may have left his glasses at home, scored the bout dead even at 57-57.

In the show’s opening bout, Bout #1, they featured the big boys, heavyweight “Big” George Thompson (below, right), shown having his arm raised in victory by veteran referee Jose Cobian. Thompson, Global ID 608194, 246.9 lbs., from Bellingham, Washington won by a unanimous decision to improve to (3-3).

With his resemblance to MMA Champion Josh Barnett, we couldn’t possibly overlook this discovery. Thompson ended up pitching a shutout by imposing his roughhouse tactics on the shorter Alejandro Garduno, Global ID 766140, 242.5 lbs. from Tijuana, who now drops to (2-13-2).

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In this one, Valdes wasted little time and went immediately with the hard shots to the body before going on to land the even sharper punches to the head. By round 3, Poom found himself against the ropes and exposed. At that point, referee Jose Cobian stepped in to stop the fight. The bout was officially stopped at the 2.39 mark of round two.

By this time, the boxers who had originally been scheduled to go first, Daniel Yocupicio (6-47-2) 180 lbs., black trunks, gold stripe from Navojoa, Sonora, Global ID 369004 and Christian Thomas (9-0) 178.5 lbs., blue trunks, white trim, from Las Vegas, Nevada, Global ID 825839 had made their way to the ring to touch gloves.

A rough crowd! One patron in the crowd claimed Thomas (r) was in the fight game for the wrong reason, shouting: “After you’ve been in a sport for 15 months, battled nine opponents and the total number of victories by your opponents is … one. Translation: You have yet to face anyone who would have had a chance to beat you, or anyone else for that matter.”

On Friday night, Thomas had a more pressing problem with his yellow, over-sized mouthpiece. On the Best In Boxing broadcast, Stand-up Comic/Sportscaster/ex-NFL Kicker Benny Ricardo suggested: “He must have borrowed that mouthpiece from Andrew the Giant!” Later in round three came another levity, “Not much of anything landing in this round,” said Ricardo. “They tried touching gloves and missed.” When things got out of hand at the end and the boxers added some wrestling techniques, one fan brazenly yelled, “Hey Pitbull!” to Yocupicio (Thomas’ opponent).

It didn’t take long before Torres’ painful shots to the stomach, along with his right and left uppercuts began to take their toll. After this one last shot to the midsection, the Mendoza corner waved the white flag. With the loss, Mendoza dropped to (0-4) while Torres improved to (12-1-1, 12 KOs).

Skipping over Bout #5 which we already covered, we move on to Bout #6, the 8 round Main Event, between super featherweights 22-year-old Roberto “The Ram” Meza Global ID 759481 from Temecula, Calif., 12-1, 6 KOs who was facing the wily veteran 31-year-old Luis Angel “Bofo” Viedas Global ID 378321, 23-9-1, 8 KOs from Tijuana, B. C., Mexico.

After Round #1 ended, our announcer, Benny Ricardo, set the table and quipped: “That gentlemen, was like watching two guys fight on a cruise ship in the middle of a storm, when only the drunk people can walk normal.” Immediately following that quip came a headbutt and in the following round, Ricardo followed with, “the key to victory for Angel Viedas is to make this fight as ugly as possible.”

The boxing match began to morph from a pushing contest into a wrestling contest. Again Ricardo fired off another salvo: “When they get in the kill zone, everything seems to stop.”

In the final round, with everyone expecting the pair to battle all out, there were all these wasted movements and chances not taken.

In Bout #7, they featured the ladies, 37-year-old Carina “La Reina” Moreno (24-6, 6 KOs) Global ID 200991 from Watsonville, Calif. (r), the former World Strawweight Champion who perhaps thought she was facing just another tune-up fight for her next run at a World Title and her opponent the happy-go-lucky, 29-year-old Cinthia Martinez (4-3-1) Global ID 662578 from Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico who surprised Moreno and put up quite a battle on her first trip to Tijuana.

Martinez (l) performed well against the more accomplished, more experienced former World Champion. Even if the pair had been asked to go 10, or even 12 rounds, it’s likely Martinez would have still been around to trade blows. Despite the praise for toughness Moreno did score a unanimous decision victory.

Bout #8 featured a six round super featherweight contest between southpaw Jesus Otero Mayorga (1-0-1) Global ID 870553 from Navojoa, Sonora, Mexico (right) and local favorite Mario Alberto “El Guero” Ramirez from Camalu, B. C., Mexico (11-1-1) who was coming back to work after an eight month vacation to be with his wife while she gave birth to their first child.

Mario Ramirez (left), now battling for an additional mouth to feed, wasted no time and went to work immediately while Otero seemed to hesitate and appeared content to lay back and be a counter puncher. As a result, the hard working Ramirez ended up securing a six round unanimous decision victory to improve to (12-1-1).

Within just a few seconds of the opening bell, there he was the master of hilarity, Benny Ricardo, back behind the mike entertaining his listeners: “That my folks is his (Gonzalez’s) version of a jab.” A short chuckle later came, “And folks, that’s what is known as the fetal position.”