MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — The longer TQBR is around, the less often I get tossed into the “aux media” section that’s the ghetto of boxing journalism, but as of now, that’s where I am for the Sergio Martinez-Serhiy Dzinziruk fight. I paid $13 for a tiny slab of chidken sandwich and five skinny onion rings, and now the undercard is under way. I’ll update it as time goes on; there’s a preview of said undercard a couple blog entries down, with at least one very good fight off-TV, along with some info about it in the “weigh-in” entry.
We’ll go in chronological order.
1-1-1 junior middleweight Abraham Lopez opened the show with a four round dominant decision of Andrew Jones, 0-3-1. Why? I don’t know. Usually these spots are taken by prospects in mismatches or something. Lopez, FWIW, has a nice straight right, and nearly knocked out Jones a couple times, but couldn’t quite put him away.
The crowd came alive for Seanie Monaghan, one of the card’s Irishmen for capitalizing on the upcoming St. Parick’s Day. The light heavyweight also dominated for four rounds to get the decision, with his opponent, Billy Cunningham, only coming to life for the final round. Monaghan is slow, but a devout body puncher. Also, there’s this one poor ring card girl who has slipped in all the four between-rounds she has worked. The crowd is taking to watching her every foot step in a combination of amusement and sympathy. At one point she left the ring area, and I feared she was injured, but she reemerged Willis Reed-style to slip anew.
The crowd loved Sonya Lamanokis even more, and she showed why. It helps that she’s from nearby and that there is some kind of Greek following for her (they waved flags from Greece and chanted for her), but the 226 pound female heavyweight puts on a show. She’s a real quality inside fighter, crowding her opponent, working her way in with a jab and throwing short uppercuts, hooks and body shots. Her opponent, Tanzee Daniel, came on late, even at one point nearly shoving Lamanokis out of the ring only for Lamonokis to catch one of the ropes she fell between with a glove and pull herself back in. But Lamonokis got the six round decision, only losing one round on one scorecard. After the fight, we honored Arthur Mercante, who died last April. I’m all for honoring the dead, but sheesh.
So remember how Gary Shaw was trying to hype Puerto Rican welterweight prospect Thomas Dulorme to me? Well, he did look like a talent. He got a premature 2nd round stoppage over Guillermo Valdes, but he flashed speed and power, hurting Valdes with a big shot at the end of the 1st then hurting him again in the 2nd to force the ref to intervene. The crowd didn’t like it and I don’t blame them, but it really was a matter of time. Seems like Dulorme might need to shorten up his punches some and work on his defense, but there are some tools there and he has the aggression to be an action fighter.
Featherweight Javier Fortuna got himself another exclamation point knockout, but not before losing some rounds to Derrick Wilson. The straight left with which he dropped Wilson the final time, though, was very, very mean. Fortuna dropped Wilson in the 3rd and 6th with right hands, then dropped him twice with lefts in the 8th, the last conclusively. Wilson was down for a good long while — he got full extension on the shot, as full as extension gets with how close he was when he landed it. But Wilson was tough throughout, often doing his best work in rounds after getting dropped. Well, except the last one. But Wilson was tough and countered Fortuna enough that Fortuna became very cautious about going full bore the way he did in a give-and-take early 1st round. It shouldn’t count too much against Fortuna that he had trouble with Wilson, because he was an opponent who had upset a couple prospects, but it does slow his roll slightly as a monster sensation. Yet, that KO was of the monster sensation variety. All in all, a good outing for Fortuna, you have to say, but with the caveat that he struggled a bit here.
