Friday Night Fights Results: Arreola and Thompson Move Forward

It's not a big boxing weekend, but the one major U.S. TV card of the weekend wasn't all bad. Heavyweights Chris Arreola and Tony Thompson won their stay-busy fights, and prospect Javier Molina was victorious.

In the main event, Arreola (32-2, 28 KO) fought for the second time in 13 days, dominating Kendrick Releford (22-15-2, 10 KO) before stopping him in the eighth round when referee Russell Mora stepped in. It was a contained performance by Arreola, instead of the wild, hyper-aggressive performance on May 14 in a TKO-3 win over Nagy Aguilera.

Releford offered little offense in the fight, keeping a high defensive guard that forced Arreola to go to the body, and the Mexican-American brawler did that well, especially with a hard right hand. In the seventh round, Releford took a knee and looked ready to get out of the fight. But he came out for the eighth, and took more punishment before Mora had seen enough, which was not dangerously overdue, but overdue nonetheless.

The first fight of the night saw a lethargic-looking Tony Thompson easily get by Maurice Harris, who looked plain hideous. Thompson (36-2, 24 KO) won by third round TKO. Harris (24-15-2, 10 KO) looked like he'd have rather been just about anywhere else but inside the ring, and the 39-year-old Thompson didn't even get to loosen up before Harris was done for the night.

The swing fight featured 2008 U.S. Olympian Javier Molina, the younger brother of Carlos Molina. Molina improved to 7-0 (4 KO) with a shutout over Idaho's David Lopez (3-6-3, 0 KO). Molina showed skills, especially given that Lopez looked better than a fighter with that record. But the question to take from the fight was whether or not the young Molina, 21, has real power.