Fairfield Boxing Show a disappointment
Alan Sanchez was a big hit in his hometown. Photo credit: Jim Wyatt
This is not to knock the venue, the Allan Witt Sports Center in Fairfield, CA., but after staying up late (11:30 p.m. PCT) to watch Telefutura’s Solo Boxeo presentation, I got to say the experience turned out to be a bummer. Even with the two hour tape delay, the producers could not cut out the on and off again blackout that occurred at the start of the junior welterweight match between Alan Sanchez (6-2-1, 2 KOs) and Cristian Favela (28-31-7, 18 KOs). A normal short circuit knocks the lights off until an electrician can repair the problem but this one had legs and teased the 1,000 plus patrons by coming on and then going off again for at least 10 minutes. The pickpockets in the crowd must have had a field day and I’m sure several patrons changed their seating to move closer to ringside.
As expected all the boxers in the red corner won their matches. The boxers in the blue corner seemed so pedestrian they reminded you of the extras that Hollywood uses for the bad guys in the B movie flicks.
Alan Sanchez ended up winning his match by scores of 80-72, 78-74, 78-74. Why the two 78-74 scores? You got me. Sanchez landed far more punches in every round. That was quite evident. The two judges in question either dozed off or they got caught up in Favela’s playacting. In almost every match he’s in, the sly fox likes to point out a phantom head butt, a low blow, or a glancing blow on the back of his head. Then he has to touch gloves to show everyone, including the judges, that he’s such a great sport.
Boxing trainer, Jazzy Jeff Mayweather, (right) assists middleweight prospect Brandon Gonzales in putting on his gloves before a workout.
In the main event, unbeaten middleweight Brandon Gonzales (14-0-0, 10 KOs) won a lackluster eight round unanimous decision over Lester “El Cubanito” Gonzalez (11-2-1, 6 KOs). To stay out of Gonzalez’s range, Gonzales spent the entire fight circling to his left and doing just enough to steal the majority of the rounds to win 79-73, 78-74, 78-74.
After the fight, Gonzales’ trainer spoke briefly with Gonzalez’s corner people and said, “Sometimes you have to be lucky, it was our turn tonight.” In other words, he wasn’t sure whether his fighter had done enough, but the judges had no doubt. As mentioned in the pre-fight preview, this was Gonzales’s first bout against a southpaw and he did as instructed; he circled left and stayed out of range of Gonzalez’s looping left. Gonzalez failed to do as he was instructed, to get in close and be the busier fighter.
What do we know about Fairfield, California? Its population is a little over 110,000, it’s home of several great wineries and three miles east of town is the Travis Air Force Base. Anheuser-Busch operates a large Budweiser brewery there, Clorox produces bleach products, and the Jelly Belly Candy Company confects its specialty jelly beans, the ones President Reagan used to rave about.
