NEW YORK CITY — (Jeff Pryor is live at Radio City Music Hall for Nonito Donaire vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux. Here are undercard results Saturday for bouts featuring Glen Tapia, Felix Verdejo and others.)
Erik DeLeon improved to 3-0 with a dominating four round decision in his lightweight bout against unheralded Diamond Baier. DeLeon snapped the Arizonian’s head back throughout en route to the clean sweep. Punctuating a punishing exhibition with a flurry of bombs to greet the final bell.
Welterweight Mikael Zewski improved to 19-0 as he overwhelmed an ultra defensive Daniel Sostre, now 11-8-2. The speedy KO came in round 2 as Sostre was put to the mat twice before the referee had seen enough. Zewski’s aggressive style will likely garner a bit of attention if he remains undefeated.
A very game but crude slugger Tyler Canning (1-1) won an action packed 154-pound match over undefeated (2-0) Dario Soccia. Though both men were active and Soccia seemed to score the more head-jarring blows, the judges awarded the bout after four stanzas to Canning. The slowly filling Radio City Music Hall greeted the decision with boos and catcalls.
Undefeated junior middleweight Glen Tapia showed good patience in a performance at turns both measured and aggressive at the chagrin of visiting Puerto Rican Joseph Del Los Santos. By scores of 80-72 by all three judges Tapia, a New Jersey native with strong support in the Hall, ran his record to 18-0.
Super middleweight Jesse Hart scored a vicious 3rd round KO, sending Marlan Farr’s eyes rolling up into his head and his body flailing through the ropes out onto the ring apron. Farr had been down moments before in a stiff legged free fall to the canvas, bouncing his head off the mat and setting the table for the dramatic finish. The intriguing Philadelphian, Hart, improved to 7-0 with the victory.
The vicious knockouts continued as Felix Verdejo made short explosive work of Steve Gutierrez. In just under two minutes of the 130 lb. bout, Gutierrez stumbled to the mat from a balance altering right that bent him over and down. Rising slowly and deemed fit to continue, Gutierrez lasted just moments longer as Verdejo froze him standing, with a left uppercut reminiscent of Bernard Hopkins devastating KO of Joe Lipsey. Standing but out, a final chopping right by Verdejo put the hapless Missouri man out if his misery. The former Puerto Rican Olympian Verdejo improves to 5-0.
Light heavyweight Sean Monaghan got the memo: knockouts preferred. He dispatched Rex Stanley in round 1 with a series of shotgun left, right, straight salvos and then a sledgehammer right hook that wrecked Rex, dropping him to the canvas like a sack of potatoes. Though he managed to beat the count, Stanley came up lame with a limp to add injury to his knockdown. Seeing the hobbled fighter, the referee immediately waved off the bout. The Long Beach, N.Y. contingent turned out to see there “Irish Boy” rack up win 18 and remain undefeated.
Three knockdowns in round 1 stamped Toka Kahn Clary’s, now 5-0, as the most eye opening performance of the undercards. Fast handed and fleet footed, Hr. Lightweight Clary made Gadiel Andaluz little more than a twisting, pinwheeling, piñata for the brief time they danced in the ring. It started when Andaluz walked into a right cross that blasted him straight to the canvas, further battering sent him sprawling every which way and while Clary scaled the ring ropes to celebrate his shiny new Radio City victory.
