Javier Fortuna is just a mess now, but he’s still faster and hits harder than a lot of junior lightweights, which is how he won Tuesday night on Fox Sports 1. He stopped Carlos Velasquez in the 10th round of an ultra-sloppy performance that was annoying to behold. Thankfully, the undercard had a gem.
Fortuna was trash talking for no reason from the very first punch Velasquez missed, then dropped Velasquez in the 2nd with a left hand behind the ear, then bloodied his nose with a likely sloppy-ass head butt in the 3rd. He was throwing pure garbage, but fast garbage and hard garbage. Velasquez suffered a loss to Rico Ramos two years ago during a time when Ramos wasn’t exactly ascendant, so fast, hard garbage seems to be his kryptonite. From there it was all just a particularly bad Sergio Martinez imitation (they share, or shared, a trainer) for Fortuna, but enough of one to get the job done. By the 10th round Velasquez wasn’t doing enough to warrant it continuing. Fortuna, meanwhile, is devolving.
Better was Domonique Dolton vs. Oscar Molina in a junior middleweight battle of unbeaten prospects, and both men fought like they meant to protect their “0.” In the end, they both did — it was a draw. But getting there was pretty intense. Dolton got wobbled hard in the 3rd and battled back toe-to-toe the rest of the way. As the less-experienced Molina faded (Dolton had been 10 rounds, Molina hadn’t) Dolton started to get the better of the exchanges. But it was quite a slugfest from top to bottom.
