Early Weekend Results: Rodriguez, Lara win on Friday

by Brickhaus on Apr 3, 2010 10:16 AM EDT in Boxing Results and Post-Fight Analysis

Delvin Rodriguez won a wide decision over Mike Arnaoutis to remain in the welterweight title picture. (Photo via Star Boxing)

On Friday Night Fights, Delvin Rodriguez defeated Mike Arnaoutis by wide decision, 119-108, 118-109 and 117-110. Both fighters fought exactly like their usual selves - Rodriguez spent most of the fight pumping out jab after jab and landing only about 15% of his punches, while Arnaoutis threw only about half as many punches, without too much success at landing them. Rodriguez remains ranked by the IBF and still should be around for a while. After a robbery draw and close loss to Isaac Hlathswayo, another close loss to Rafal Jackiewicz, and wins over fringe contenders Anraoutis and Shamone Alvarez, Rodriguez has pretty much proven himself to be near the top of the third tier in the welterweight division. Arnaoutis, on the other hand, may be near the end of his tether as a main event fighter. His best fight probably came against Juan Urango six years ago, and since then he's lost every time he's stepped up.
On Showtime, Erislandy Lara won a wide decision over Danny Perez, with scores of 99-91 throughout. The fight was a little closer than the scores indicate, but in truth Lara seemed to be coasting somewhat, doing just enough to take rounds. No matter where Perez took the fight, Lara was able to outbox him. Lara moves to 11-0, while Perez falls to 34-7.
In the most impressive performance of the night, Puerto Rican Carlos Velazquez (fighting on the card without the presence of his long-haired twin brother) decimated Ira Terry, knocking him out for the first time in his career. Terry's 24-2 was a padded record if I've ever seen one, but Velazquez came out with bad intent and really just beat the tar out of him all night. In the fourth round, he caught Terry with a right hand, followed up by a combo, that sent Terry down to his knees, and his will just seemed to give out on him, as he remained on the ground for a few minutes afterwards. Velazquez is now 12-0.
On the undercard at the Mohegan Sun, Demetrius "Boo Boo" Andrade won a unanimous 60-54, but unimpressive, decision over Geoffery Spruell. Spruell obviously didn't belong in the same ring as Andrade, but Andrade's punching form deteriorated into sloppy slaps after a couple of rounds, and Andrade was unable to put him away.
Andy Kolle beat Matt "once beaten prospect" Vanda by unanimous decision. After getting knocked out in the first round by Paul Williams, Kolle's actually been on a pretty good run and is getting close to contender status. Reportedly, there was a huge delay in this one because the ring fell down during one of the undercard fights.
Hector Sanchez, the 6'1" light welterweight prospect who won a robbery decision over Chop Chop Corley a while back, finally had his bubble burst, as 9-2-2 Cleotis Pendarvis knocked him out in the 5th round.
Yan Barthelemy got back in the win column, defeating 6-0 prospect (and fellow Olympian) Roberto Benitez. The Olympic gold medalist was just as heralded as Yuriorkis Gamboa and Odlanier Solis when the three defected together. Since then, he's lost twice (once to a nobody, once to Jorge Diaz), was dropped from his million dollar promotional contract with Arena Box, and has been fighting mostly on small undercards in Miami. His biggest problem has been an unwillingness to throw punches unless it's the perfect opportunity, which has also been a problem for Guillermo Rigondeaux. If he can get his head on straight, the talent is still there for Barthelemy to go somewhere.
In case you missed Chaos100's fanpost, on Wednesday morning, David Tua won a boring decision over Friday Ahunanya. Ahunanya decided to take the Kevin Johnson route to victory, trying to fight a good defensive fight and last rounds, but not actually throwing enough punches at any point to win rounds. Tua didn't look great by most reports. He wasn't as aggressive as he was against Shane Cameron, and only a few times did he load up with combinations against the ropes, never with more than four punches at a time. Expect Tua to keep fighting guys at this level for a while - he has three fights remaining on his contract with Maori TV, and as long as he's fighting in New Zealand, the revenue will never be high enough to attract a high level opponent.
With easy wins over no-name opponents: Deontay Wilder, Sharif Bogere (who has fought an incredible 14 times in the past year and is now one of my personal favorite prospects), Joe Greene, Henry "Sugar Poo" Buchanan, Yathomas Riley, Ronson Frank and Ali Chebah.

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Deontay Wilder

I havent seen any of his fights in a fair while. I think maybe not since his 2nd or third pro outing. Being that he is a young upcoming American heavyweight, and an olympic medalist no less, you would think he would be getting a bit more exposure. I remember thinking that he had a fair bit of potential to work with when i saw him as an amateur.

by Duan on Apr 3, 2010 11:22 AM EDT reply actions

The potential is there

But he’s so absurdly raw, that I don’t think it hurts him too much to keep him off TV. I believe he was on FNF three fights ago, and he had to serve the stupidest suspension I’ve ever heard of. Ohio suspended him for 6 months because he walked out to a song with obscene lyrics, and it’s not like he even picked the song. Pure idiocy.

Anyway, it might actually help his development to keep him out of the spotlight until he starts facing guys who have a prayer. Right now, he’s getting by on pure physical talent.

Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."

by Brickhaus on Apr 3, 2010 12:06 PM EDT up reply actions