Ringside Report from Club Nokia
Posted by Igor Frank on 08.27.2009
Mares stops Fulgencio and Rodela outlasts Rodriguez. Molina stops Nelson and Ricky Lopez stays undefeted.
The third installment of Fight Night Club, promoted by Golden Boy Promotions featured explosive action and hot young prospects.
In the main event of the evening, junior featherweight, Mexican Olympian Abner Mares in only his second fight back after an eye retina surgery took on a rugged Dominican Carlos Fulgencio in an eight round contest. Twenty three year old Mares who is currently training in the dessert under a watchful eye of Joel Diaz looked nothing short of spectacular. Mares displayed his amateur pedigree and systematically destroyed a Dominican fighter with accurate combinations upstairs and downstairs. Mares looked sharp and purposeful showering his opponent with hard shots that were coming from everywhere. By the sixth frame when it seemed just a formality, Mares landed a hook to the body that dropped Fulgencio for good at 2:44 of the stanza. It shouldn't bee too long till we see Mares in a title bout
In the opening bout of the evening, debutant, junior welterweight from Las Vegas, Nevada, Juan Heraldez only needed 3 minutes and 36 seconds to annihilate Luis Tapia (1-3) from Los Angeles, California. Heraldez was landing just about everything he was throwing and by the second frame was inflicting a lot of damage forcing referee Lou Morrett to stop the contest.
In the co main event of the evening junior lightweights David Rodela (14-1-3,6KO'S) from Oxnard, California and Puerto Rican Gamalier Rodriguez (8-2-2,4KO) met inside the squared circle for a six round scrap. Rodriguez used his superior boxing skills, accurate punches and fluid movement to win the first round, but in the third aggression of Rodela started to pay dividends, he landed some heavy right hands and uppercuts that seemed to hurt Puerto Rican fighter. Rodela continued to press the action in the forth, but Rodriguez found his legs again and countered effectively to make it a very close round. The two fisted action continued as Rodriguez switched to southpaw to temporarily confuse Rodela, who picked up the pace and scored effectively on the inside. The final round was a true war of attrition with both pugs throwing heavy bombs and inflicting damage with intermittent success. In the end the judges favored the aggression of the local Rodela and awarded him a unanimous decision with scores 59-55, 59-55, and 58-56.
Undefeated feather weight from Oxnard, California, Ricky Lopez (6-0,2KO) had to settle for a four round decision victory after knocking down his opponent John Wampash (1-2-1,1KO) from Miami, Florida three times. After a close and competitive first stanza Lopez found his groove and used a jab right hand combination to drop his opponent at the beginning of the second. Wampash beat the count and went down again almost immediately, more from a loss of balance than damage. From that point on Ricky took control of the fight, but could not close the show. In the fourth, Lopez dropped his adversary again with a jab right hand, but brave Wampash got up and fought back to hear the final bell on his feet. All three judges scored the bout 39-34.
Popular junior bantamweight from San Diego Sergio Espinoza (16-6-1,5KO'S) had to overcome a lot of adversity in the first round, he got the worst of a clash of heads with a taller David Gaspar ( 11-2-1,7KO'S) from Wilmington and seemed buzzed and then ran into a counter left hook and found himself on the canvas. Espinoza came back strong in the second and seemed to be on his way of taking over the fight in the third when Gaspar dropped him hard with the right hand. Ever resilient veteran Espinoza came back and had younger Gaspar in some difficulties with heavy body attack, but Gaspar landed some right hand bombs and almost stopped Espinoza in the final round Judges Score cards were as follows 58-54, 58-54, 59-53.
Unbeaten junior welterweight from Norwalk , California ,currently training at Maywood Boxing Club, Carlos Molina (9-0,5KO'S)destroyed Anthony Nelson (7-11-1,7 KO'S) from Kansas City, Kansas in the very first round. Molina landed bomb after bomb snapping his opponent's head back repeatedly finally forcing the referee Raul Caiz Jr to stop the mayhem at 2:13 of the first stanza.
