JULY?S VERSION THE BEST SO FAR FOR THE MONTHLY NOKIA FIGHT NIGHTS
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 23 Jul 2010
Downtown LA: Amidst the hustle and buzz at the LA Live area, Golden Boy Promotions held their monthly Fight Nights at the Club Nokia. The combatants where all relatively unknown but they were all willing mixers. Thus, they put up the best ever Nokia Fight Night, at least from the point of view of this writer.
The evening started with two amateur fights just to jazz up the audience as they begun to fill up the venue.
Rogelio Ramirez of East LA beat Gerardo Hernandez on a junior lightweight fight over three rounds.
Xavier Montelongo also of East LA bested Jose Iguinega of Stocton in a fights for lightweights.
After a short break to accommodate the hoopla at the Club and while FOX (FSN) TV prepared their thing, the first bout took place. The combatants were Oscar Andrade (2-0-0) of LA vs. Ramon Valadez (1-1-1, 1KO) of East LA. Their fight was a 4 rounder at 140 lbs. From the get go, it was a non-stop exchange with each fighter scoring heavy bombs as well as receiving them. If the GBP people are looking for a ?Nokia Fight Night Fight of the Year?, this could be it. The duo exchanged punches repeatedly with almost no pause. They looked like two energizer bunnies on top of a boxing ring. In the end, Andrade won by a close UD with all the three judges. Scoring 39-37 for Andrade.
The second fight was a bantamweight tiff between Nestor Rocha (22-2-0, 7KO) of Montebello versus journeyman Benji Garcia ( 14-16-3, 1KO) of San Diego. It took Rocha the whole first round to figure out Garcia and at 45 seconds of the second round, he ended the fight with a good left hook to the liver that sent Garcia crumbling to the canvas in obvious pain. The end came at 45 seconds of round two.
Top photo: Angel Estrada wins over Raul Tovar.
David Morales wins over John Willoughby
Orcar Andrade wins over Ramon Valadez.
Nestor Rocha KO Benji Garcia.
Gary Russel, Jr KO Mauricio Pastrana.
The third fight was the main event. It was a junior lightweight bout between former Olympian Gary Russel, Jr (11-0-0, 8KO) of Capitol Hts, Maryland and the veteran journeyman from Columbia, Mauricio Pastrana (35-15-2, 24 KO). It took Russel all of 106 seconds to end the fight.
The next fight was between 18 year old David Morales of Long Beach (1-0-1) who was looking for his first win and John Willoughby (2-4-0, 1KO) of Selma, Alabama. The junior welterweight fight was also a slambang affair with the youngster showing a lot of guts and not backing off from the onslaught of the man from the South. Morales won via a UD with all scores being 40-35.
The final fight of the evening between Angel Estrada (5-0-1, 2KO) of San Diego and Raul Tovar (7-4-1, 3KO) of Mission , Texas completed the five bout sizzler card. Estrada displayed more aggressiveness and landed the bigger punches through out the fight and ended with close UD with all scores being 39-37.
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