Dominic Pesoli’s 8 Count Productions along with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Incorporated brought another televised fight card to Chicago Friday night. Televised on Telefutura’s weekly boxing series Solo Boxeo De Miller, the event featured a ten round battle between featherweight contender Hector Velasquez and Trinidad Mendoza. The card was rounded out with five other exciting bouts featuring top Chicago fighters.
For the WBC #10 Valesquez, a September 10 HBO slot against superstar Manny Pacquiao was on the line. Velasquez (42-10-2, 31 KOs) didn’t let the opportunity pass him by as he took apart Mendoza (21-10-2, 16 KOs) in impressive fashion.
After a lengthy delay in which both fighters stood in their corners waiting for the bell to sound, the television program caught up with the ring action and the fight began. Mendoza was very cautious and respectful of the veteran’s power throughout the first round. In round two, Mendoza was cautioned twice for borderline low blows. Both fighters appeared evenly matched in skills and determination with the slight edge going to Velasquez for his power. As the fight wore on, Velasquez was able to increase the power of his punches, but surprisingly, Mendoza’s confidence seemed to grow and he became more aggressive, landing his best shots of the fight.
Round four saw the power of Velasquez’s punches start to do their damage to Mendoza. A smashing right hook to the ribs buckled the knees of Mendoza and three punches later another right hook dropped Mendoza. When the fight resumed, the pace increased with a sense of urgency on the part of Mendoza. Velasquez however remained calm and focused, making sure that every punch thrown landed with force. Midway through round five, a left hook to the jaw buckled the knees of Mendoza and a left right combo to the kisser dropped him to both knees. Having seen Mendoza take a lot of punishment and now badly injured, referee Geno Rodriguez wisely stopped the fight at 1:25 for a TKO victory to add to Velasquez’s record.
Middleweights “Macho” Miguel Hernandez 16-3, 9 KO’s, and “KO” Kenny Kost 9-1, 6 KO’s, battled for ten greulling rounds in a matchup of two hard punchers. Kost had the advantage in height and reach, but otherwise, both men were equaly conditioned and ready for this battle. Everyone in attendance for this fight were on their feet screaming for the majority of this fight as both men stood toe to toe and traded shots. Most of the rounds were extremely even and difficult to score as evidenced by the judges majority split decision scores of 96-94 for Hernandez and 97-93 twice for Kost.
In one of the most explosive and exciting fights of the night, Jimmy Gonzalez 2-0-1, 2 KO’s, and Michael Walker 7-0-1, 5 KO’s battled to a split decision draw. With Gonzalez bleeding from the mouth and nose by round two, and Walker with large swelling under his right eye, there was little doubt as to the damage that these two men were unleashing upon each other. With blistering action that did not relent for one second of this six round fight, it just does not get much better than this. The momentum would shift from one fighter to the other and back, but neither was able to come out and clearly dominate the other. In this extremely close match, judges scored the fight 58-56 Gonzalez, 58-56 Walker and 57-57 even. This has the makings for an epic rivalry if these two men ever re-match this fight.
Lightweight Brandon Rios improved his unbeaten perfect record to 6-0 with 6 KO’s after he devastated Jaime Alvarado 3-3-2, 2 KO’s in 2:08 of round one. With the cleaner and straighter shots, Rios was able to beat Alvarado to the punch. A right left combo sets up Alvarado for the overhand right hook that he never saw coming. As he regained his feet during the referee’s count, he looked wobbly and unfocused prompting referee Tim Adams to stop the fight.
Tommy Pyle 2-1-1, 1 KO faced Michael Gonzalez 2-0, 2 KO’s in a four round Super Lightweight fight. Pyle has great head movement and quick hands and reflexes, but his slightly unorthodox stance and habit of keeping his fists low to his belt led to his undoing. Pyle gave Gonzalez a tough fight for three rounds, and when backed into the corner, Gonzalez was able to land a series of 20 or more hard shots to Pyle who just tried to block them with his forearms. But much to the surprise of everyone who thought he was on his way out, Pyle came back with a rally of his own that had Gonzalez momentarilly in trouble. In round four, a series of body punches dropped Pyle. After the fight resumed, Pyle got backed into the corner again where Gonzalez just pummeled him with punches, forcing referee Geno Rodriguez to step in on his behalf and stop the fight at 2:59 into round four.
Carl “Iron Fist” Davis improved to 7-3, 7 KO’s with a quick KO of Joe Johnson in just 1:18 of the first round. Davis came out extremely aggressively and had to force himself to calm down more than once, and with somewhat wild punches his determination quickly paid off when a powerful right hook to the side of Johnson’s ribcage dropped the fighter face down on the ring floor, unable to get up and beat referee Tim Adams’ count.
