What the hell was that? Fox Sports 1, which hosts the worst boxing program on television by a galaxy or two, delivered an evenly-matched main event Monday night with some late drama. Manuel Avila, the 21-year-old junior featherweight prospect, won a bout where the outcome was unclear until the 10th and final round, when he dropped Enrique Quevedo with a left hook.
Not even the 10th round was all that clear until there were about 30 seconds left, with Quevedo driving home flush right hands that might've won him the judges' favor. Prior to the 10th, Avila had been edging Quevedo with activity, if not an edge like the CompuBox numbers gave him, while Quevedo was landing a lot of the harder shots. Quevedo fought through a bad cut from the 2nd on, and Avila appeared increasingly uncomfortable as the bout progressed. Quevedo was a legitimate opponent, having beaten gatekeeper Christopher Martin just before this outing, and he pushed Avila like he needed to be pushed. As it turned out, Avila didn't need the knockdown after all, winning by 97-92 across the board. But he fought like he had to, and that speaks well of him.
Too bad the rest of the card was more true to form. Middleweight Paul Mendez stopped Raul Cazarez and his tiger-striped haircut in the 3rd round with a big right hand, which might've been impressive if not for the fact that the health news on Cazarez was not encouraging at all. Junior lightweight Andy Vences stopped Dominic Coca, loser of his last four, in the 3rd round, when Coca quit with a hand injury, although he at least gave Vences a few reasonably quality rounds with his effort. And featherweight Diego De La Hoya — cousin of Oscar — stopped Sergio Najera in De La Hoya's third fight. I didn't tune in quickly enough to catch it, but he apparently got a bit stunned by a jab.
