ARREOLA DESTROYS MITCHELL IN LESS THAN A ROUND
By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Sun, 08 Sep 2013
Last week in response to PhilBoxing?s request for press credentials to cover the Arreola vs Mitchell fight at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, the people in charge of the credentials for the fight graciously issued one for this writer.
I drove east from my place in the West San Fernando Valley outside of Los Angeles to the City of Indio some 140 miles away excited about the prospect of photographing a 9-fight card that has been highly hyped by the promoters.
Unfortunately, Fantasy Springs is an awful place for boxing photographers particularly for those that do not represent huge media outfits or have no connections to the promoters - therefore they get no spot at ringside.
Although I did not expect a ringside spot, I was at least hoping for a spot where I can make good use of my 300 mm lens.
Unfortunately because of the design of the Fantasy Springs fight venue, there was no place for the ?auxiliary? photographers. The best the promoters can give people was a seat on the floor level behind the media writers.
It was not a spot to take good photos. The ring ropes are on the way and no amount of work will allow a decent shot.
So for the undercard fights, most of the people like me just sat and enjoyed the fights and did not bother to take photos.
When the televised fights begun, we surveyed the arena and quietly found ourselves seats at the very top rows that up to that time were vacant. Although such actions are not generally allowed, we informed the promoter?s reps that we would do so. They did not say yes or no. So we took that as a hint to do it.
The first televised fight was between veteran Rafael Marquez of Mexico City, the brother of Juan Manuel Marquez. Rafa holds a 41-9-0,37KO record. Some of those were the classic fights against Israel Vasquez. Marquez fought Efren Esquivias (17-2-1,10KO) a relatively unknown fighter compared to Rafa.
Word was GBP was possibly grooming Rafa against Leo Santa Cruz if he gets by convincingly against Esquivias.
Esquivas (R) floors Marquez.
However Esquivias had none of that and he came to win. He greatly outworked Rafa throwing 200+ more punches than the 38 year old Marquez.
A straight right in the 9th round from Esquivias floored Marquez so badly that referee Raul Caiz Jr came to the rescue of the wily old veteran. He stopped the fight effectively ending the career of Marquez (top photo).
In the main event, Cris Arreola (35-3-0, 31K0) took a mere 2:26 in round 1 to stop an obvious outclassed former football pro, Seth Mitchell (26-2-2, 19K0) of Brandywine, Maryland.
Mitchell clearly had no business being in the same ring at Arreola. He was just not in the class of the Mexican-American heavyweight.
The fight was so poorly matched leading a writer-friend from Las Vegas, Mark Ortega to tweet: ?Is this the fight I took a 5 hour bus trip for??
With the win Arreola grabbed the WBC International Heavyweight title and endlessly thanked himself for the win.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ed de la Vega, DDS.
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