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CES Boxing hosted ‘The Last Man Standing’ Card at Foxwoods last Saturday, in a showcase card, the sort of card which keeps people in New England area interested, and how you build your business. Ray Oliveira would have sold a lot more tickets. His scratch from the card, as well as a scratched bout between Joseph Perez and Ernest Butts, resulted in a competitive no television card of eight professional bouts.
Light heavyweight contender Joey Spina, ranked sixth in the world by the World Boxing Association, needed less than three rounds to dispose of opponent Antwun Echols, a last minute substitute for Ray Oliveira. The bout almost ended in a no-contest after the first round when Echols went down at the end of the round and claimed a late punch. If Echols was unable to continue, and the punch ruled accidental, or after the bell, a no-contest could possibly have resulted.
“He might have been faking,” noted well known HBO commentator Harold Lederman near ringside. “Maybe Echols was faking, and maybe he wasn’t. I was just not sure.”
The punch was close to the bell. Referee Johnny Callas made a judgment call, played it safe and gave Echols a mandatory five minute rest period in his corner. The crowd came alive, heckling Echols on his stool, and booed very loudly. KO Kid Spina, standing in a corner after the ‘knockout’, muttered “Oh come on!”
In an exclusive ringside interview, Spina’s manager Ed Imondi provided the best explanation for what happened. “I’ve been around for forty years. It should have been scored a knockdown. That’s it. Even if it wasn’t in progress, the punch was already in combination. I saw it land, maybe land a split second after the bell. There’s no way a fighter that has a punch three quarters of the way in progress can stop the punch. The referee obviously thought the punch was right after the bell. It was not an intentional punch, but I can’t dispute the referee’s call because it was his opinion. The referee could have called it either way.”
Echols, originally scheduled to fight on October 2 at the Horseshoe Casino in Indiana, had up to date medical tests, took this bout on late notice, and tried to win. Echols won the first round by throwing more punches by volume.
Echols came right at Spina after the opening bell, swinging wide with his punches, and holding a low left. Echols was warned for holding behind the head by the referee. Spina trapped Echols several times in corners and nailed him with combinations, and Echols, who could not fight his way out, had to hold on to Spina get out of them. Late in the round, the two boxers started wrestling.
In the second round, Spina took the fight to center ring and began working the left jab. Both fighters were throwing right-left combinations to the head and body. Spina was more accurate, landing more punches while bleeding from the nose. ‘Kid Dynamite’ Echols got tired on the ropes, and got hit by several Spina overhand lefts.
Echols, getting desperate, was warned by referee Johnny Callas for pushing and punching. Echols threw a low blow which the referee, screened off, did not see. Spina then decked Echols off the ropes with a left to the head at the bell, not called a knockdown by the referee, who then called time as the crowd booed.
When the bout resumed, promoter Jimmy Burchfield at ringside shouted at Spina “Stay focused, Joey. Don’t let anything rattle you!” Spina remained focused. He finished the job
In the third round, Spina trapped a spent Echols in the Spina corner, and unleashed a savage flurry of punches, including a vicious left hook which maimed Echols helpless, forcing referee Johnny Callas to call a halt to the slaughter at 0:49. Echols protested the stoppage, but he was taking a bad beating.
Spina manager Ed Imondi explained, “The referee did a good job by stopped the bout when he did because Joey could have seriously hurt Echols. Echols has been around a long time. He threw more punches (by aggression) in the first round. I thought round one kind of close-but they probably gave Echols the first round. We wanted a good fight for Joey and thought Echols would go longer. I did anticipate seven to eight rounds, but still ending in a knockout.” The knockout came sooner.
As for Spina’s future, Imondi was direct. “Whoever Jimmy Burchfield suggests (as an opponent) we’ll agree upon, and we’ll get together and decide which matches we’ll take for Joey. I believe Joey’s ready for a world title shot.”
In the post fight interview, Spina clarified the punch at the end of the first round.
“I threw the punch before the bell, but the punch landed after the bell.” As for a world title shot, Spina stated “168 or 175 I can fight either way.”
Imondi also stated the Spina camp was still open to a fight with Ray Oliveira in the future, if Oliveira could meet medical requirements. “Oh absolutely, we’ll take it again if Oliveira passes the tests.” However, outside Fox Theatre after the main event, Oliveira indicated he had only reached 168 pounds two weeks ago. “I’m going back to 154 pounds,” noted Oliveira, nixing the possibility of rescheduling his bout with Spina. “I am going to come back. It’s just I’m not comfortable at the higher weight.”
Spina, from Providence, Rhode Island, improves to 26-1-2 (17) in his first bout in a year.
While Echols from Davenport, Iowa, falls to 32-14-4 (28) and is 1-10-3 in his last 14 bouts.
In the opening four round female super bantamweight bout, Karen Dulin of Mystic, Connecticut, also an employee of Shrine Nightclub at MGM Grand at Foxwoods, went to 2-6 (1) , with a four round decision over winless Katarina De la Cruz, 0-5-1, Los Angeles, California.
Dulin had height and reach advantage, and scored with repeated left and right jabs in rounds one and two. De La Cruz tried to get inside and got tagged with right-left combination head shots coming in.
In rounds three and four, Dulin mixed body shots and body combinations as well as landing a number of overhand right rights and left-right head shots. De La Cruz threw haymakers, but her punches were wild and she missed with most shots.
Neither woman hit with power, enabling De La Cruz to go the distance. Dulin was a National Golden Gloves female semifinalist in Hollywood, Florida in 2006, at 119 pounds bantamweight. In a post fight interview after the card ended, Dulin stated she needed to turn around her career, “I need to build up my confidence. I train in Providence, for this fight we had a decent amount of sparring. I hurt De La Cruz a number of times and should have pressed my advantage.”
Result: Karen Dulin UD4 Katarina De La Cruz
Scoring: 40-36 from all three judges for Dulin.
Featherweight Luis Rosa of New Haven, Connecticut, improved to 4-0 (3), with a third round TKO of Jose ‘El Flaco Explosivo’ Velasquez of Worcester, Massachusetts,
1-7-1 (1).
Rosa landed left-right combinations consistently with a good defense, and numerous body shots which wore down Velasquez. Referee Johnny Callas stopped the bout at 0:47 of the third with Rosa landing flurries on a defenseless Velasquez trapped in a corner. Rosa is an excellent prospect, an aggressive fighter with good hand speed and good power.
Result: Luis Rosa TKO 3 Jose Velasquez at 0:47 of round three.
In a wild no defense welterweight slugfest, Derek Silveira came off the deck to score a fourth round stoppage of game Phillip Bernette. Welterweight Silveira, who looks and fights something like a young Ray Mancini, went down from a slip in the first, and was down again in the second after walking into a right hand with his chin up.
In an even first round, both fighters traded bombs, with both fighters holding a low left and throwing a lot of missed punches. In a contrast, Bernette fought intensely, while Silveira was calm. Bernette was more aggressive but inaccurate, while Silveira was landing the combinations he threw with accuracy.
In the second round, both fighters threw everything in the tank with no defense as the trade-a-bomb slugfest continued. In the third round, Silveira used great head and body shot combination work to knock out Bernette’s mouthpiece and wear him down. Bernette was taking a beating and not landing punches.
During the fourth round, Silveira was landing overhand rights, and when Bernette slumped over on his feet after Silveira threw a beautiful overhand left, referee Ken Ezzo wisely stopped the contest at 1:30.
In the post fight interview, Silveira stated “I used overhand right hands as Bernette tired. Bernette fought a good fight but he was done. I wanted to take the fight out of the judge’s hands.” The bout was 28-28 on the scorecards at the time of the stoppage, owing to Bernette’s second round flash knockdown, leaving the bout on the table until the very end.
Silveira continued, “I came out with my game plan, to let Bernette think he could keep coming with the right counter, and use my own right over it to hurt him. I knew I was going to out wind him. I used short punches. Left to the body, right to the head. Hit the body so the head opens up. My trainers told me who wins the last round wins the fight. I knew I had to hurt him with a lot more punches and put him down so it wasn’t a close decision.” Silveira did better.
Silveira improves to 3-0 (2), while Bernette falls to 0-2. Silveira came in at 149 pounds, Bernette at 153, and the fighters appeared to be closer to light middleweight than welterweight.
Result: Derek Silveira TKO 4 Phillip Bernette at 1:30 of the round four.
In a super middleweight bout where guts meant more than ring record, Greg McCoy of New Haven, Connecticut, went to 2-1-1 (1), with a third round TKO of previously unbeaten Reynaldo Rodriguez of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, now 5-1.
Both fighters tried to work the body. McCoy had height and reach advantage, forcing Rodriguez to work on the inside and draw distance with McCoy on the ropes. McCoy landed right hand power shot counters, and overhand lefts and rights. Both fighters appeared gassed when McCoy dropped Rodriguez with a right in round two.
In the third round, McCoy kept landing effective head combinations, and when the tattooed Rodriguez staggered backwards around the ring, referee Richard Flaherty stopped the bout at 2:41.
Result: Greg McCoy TKO 3 Reynaldo Rodriguez at 2:41 of round three.
In a super lightweight bout Edwin Soto 5-0-1 (2),faced Trenton Titsworth 3-10-1 (2), who is listed on boxrec.com as being 5’ 11” appeared to be closer to at least 6’5″. The bout was far closer than scoring indicated. Titsworth’s height and reach proportions represented danger at every turn for Soto, who took no chances with his menacing foe.
Soto could not get inside, and had trouble reaching Titsworth, but kept coming forward and landed enough effective overhand rights to win this contest. Titsworth tried to counterpunch in center ring, or throw a left and a right and then tie Soto up. The first round was close.
Titsworth added head movement in the rounds which followed to confuse Soto, but Soto was just more aggressive and punched more accurately. Some of Soto’s punches missed by a foot, though. It just did not pay for Soto to punch himself out.
Result: Edwin Soto UD 4 Trenton Titsworth
Scoring: 40-36 twice and 39-37 Soto
Middleweight David Bauza, of Hartford, Connecticut by way of Puerto Rico, went to 6-0 (3), with a hard fought decision over tough Jeremy Wood of Sidney, Ohio, now 0-2.
Wood’s eyes were bruised and swollen against the more talented Bauza, Wood just would not go. The bout could have been stopped, but despite the mismatch, Wood was giving it his all.
Bauza came forward as the aggressor to win round one, landing crisp left-right head-head-head and head-body shots. Wood was swinging wildly in the first, not landing any punches of consequence.
Bauza switched to counterpuncher moving side to side in round two, not cutting off the ring but landing many left-right combinations. Wood tried to slug it out with Bauza, and landed a few lucky punches during headed exchanges. Bauza won round two with head shots and overhand counter rights to the head.
In the third and fourth, Bauza landed a lot of damaging counter rights, but was warned for elbowing Wood, who hung tough, and missed with most punches. Wood’s legs were still good and he kept moving and trying. Wood survived, but he took a torturous beating. Nice show of good sportsmanship by Wood after this bout, who shook hands with Bauza’s little son, who entered the ring in boxing garb as a smaller version of his dad.
Result: David Bauza UD 4 Jeremy Wood
Scoring: 40-36 from all three judges for Bauza.
In the preliminary bout to the main event, Vladine Biosse, Providence, Rhode Island, also called ‘Mr. Providence’, won a six round unanimous decision over ‘Iron’ Ariel Espinal, an upset specialist out of Brooklyn, New York, by way of the Dominican Republic. Biosse, the New England Super Middleweight champion, now 9-0 (4), got taken the distance by Espinal, now 8-16-3 (4), who proved he could take serious punishment without giving up. The beating Biosse gave Espinal was unpleasant to watch.
Biosse spent much of the bout pinning Espinal in corners, and throwing continuous shots to Espinal’s head. Espinal tried staying on the move more and threw a lot of jabs, but they lacked power. The bottom line was Biosse declined to punch himself out, and wound up out boxing Espinal for the decision.
Biosse was warned for a low blow to Espinal by referee Richard Flaherty in the fifth round. Espinal leaned with his head throughout, and leaned on the inside to try to neutralize height and reach advantage.
Not a quitter, Espinal threw some ‘Hail Mary’ haymakers midway through the sixth round and tried for a lucky win, but like many in the casino, his luck ran out of time. Espinal survived six ugly rounds.
Result: Vladine Biosse UD 6 Iron Ariel Espinal
Scoring: 60-54 from all three judges for Biosse.
© Robert Brizel / Saddo Boxing
