Star Boxing: Rodriguez Outboxes Arnaoutis At Mohegan Sun

Earlier tonight Joe DeGuardia’s Star Boxing presented an exciting and entertaining six bout card before a packed house of fans at the Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino in Uncasville, CT. The card, presented by ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights”, featured hometown favorite, Delvin Rodriguez, defending his USBA welterweight championship against “Mighty” Mike Arnaoutis.

The bout started slow with each fighter looking to feel each other out in the early rounds. As the rounds progressed the action picked up as Rodriguez began working behind a piston-like jab to set up his right hand and left hook.

Rodriguez was the busier of the fighters as he continuously stalked Arnaoutis around the ring, while Arnaoutis looked for opportunities to counter. Arnaoutis continued to fight hard down the stretch but Rodriguez continously beat him to the punch, simultaneously breaking Arnaoutis down.

In the 11th round a vicious right hand from Rodriguez opened a nasty cut over Arnaoutis’ eye. Seeing the blood seemed to spur both fighters as they began trading in the center of the ring. Rodriguez finished the fight strong, landing hard combinations in the 12th and final round.

In the end scores were 119-108, 118- 109, 117-110, all for Rodriguez who improved his record to (25-4-2, 14KO). Arnaoutis, fought hard in the losing effort, dropping his record to 22-5-2, 10KO.

In the co-feature bout of the evening, Demetrius Andrade improved his record to a perfect 10-0, 7KO with a dominating six round shutout decision over extremely game Geoffrey Spruiell (8-9, 2KO).

The 2007 Amateur World Champion and 2008 U.S. Olympian Andrade came out in the first and immediately began showing why many boxing insiders believe him to be the top prospect in all of boxing, as he displayed lightening quick combinations that scored to both the body and head of his opponent.

In addition to Andrade’s vicious attacks on offense he also showed beautiful defense as he would move in and land three and four punch combinations, and then move out of range leaving Spruiell hitting nothing but air.

To Spruiell’s credit he hung tough, but Andrade was simply too much. Andrade thoroughly dominated that entire fight, switching from both southpaw to orthodox, and seemingly landing at will.

Look for Andrade, who is co-promoted by Star Boxing and Banner Promotions to be back in action very soon.

In a battle of 2004 Olympians, Roberto Benitez and Yan Barthelemy went to war in their scheduled six round super bantamweight contest.

Benitez looked as though he was going to end the show quickly as he had Barthelemy badly hurt in the second round. Barthelemy fought back hard though and the two exchanged vicious combinations to close the round.

The two began right where they left off in the third trading bombs in the center of the ring, with one of the shots opening a bad cut over Benitez’s eye. In the fourth the two once again came out and began firing hard accurate shots. Midway through the round, with blood streaming down Benitez’s face the ringside doctor had seen enough and called a halt to the contest at 1:16 of the round.

The Benitez camp was very upset, as Benitez was giving just as good as he got before the fight was stopped. Hopefully Barthelemy will give Benitez a rematch as this was definitely a fight any true fight fan would want to see again.

Star Boxing’s Yathomas Riley improved his record to 8-0, 6KO with yet another devastating 2nd round KO over fellow banger Walter Foster Jr. (4-2-1, 4KO).

The hard punching Riley dropped Foster with a right hook to the body midway through the first, and another right to the body in the 2nd. With Foster visibly hurt Riley went in the for the kill. A huge right hook ended the contest in devastating fashion at 1:20 of the 2nd round. Foster stayed down for several minutes following the knockout.

Joe Greene W8 Chris Gray
Shqiprim Muriqi TKO3 Fasika Bezabeh