Tonight's Friday Night Fights had blood and action over two fights, and a little controversy in the opener.
The main event saw lightweight John Molina improve to 23-1 (19 KO) with a stoppage win over Rob Frankel (28-11-1, 5 KO). Referee Raul Caiz Jr called off the bout in the corner after the fifth round, with Frankel suffering from a handful of ugly cuts and a left eye that was basically swollen shut.
Frankel had been able to outbox a listless Molina early in the fight, but in the fourth and fifth rounds, Molina's power began making the difference as he tore into Frankel. Frankel's first cut came in the first round, and wasn't what wound up stopping the fight, but it was clear that he had some old damage that was easy to open up. The veteran gave his best, but simply did not have the firepower to keep Molina off of him.
I do have to say that I just don't see Molina as a legitimate contender, no matter how many times Joe Tessitore reminds me that he's ranked in all four bogus alphabet top tens. He is fun to watch and tough, but I can't see him having any real success against any of the real top ten fighters at 135.
In the co-feature, Mauricio Herrera (18-1, 7 KO) won a debated majority decision over Mike Dallas Jr (17-2-1, 7 KO) on scores of 98-92, 96-94 and 95-95. Everyone seemed to agree that 98-92 was definitely too wide, but it was really, the more I think about it, a fight scored mostly on what you prefer. I don't think Dallas was having any major trouble in the fight, and scored it for him because I thought he largely landed the better punches. But Herrera was able to dictate the pace for large portions of the fight and had his success, too. But even then, Dallas eventually did a good job fighting Herrera's game inside, often beating him at his own game. After the fight, Dallas was highly distraught as he'd felt he clearly won. The figure also featured a round cut short by about 30 seconds thanks to a timekeeper mistake.
We'll have more live coverage tonight with Solo Boxeo Tecate starting at 11:30pm EDT. Live coverage for that show is here.