Round by Round: Kendall Holt vs. Jaime Rangel.

The main event of tonight’s Friday Night Fight’s card in Florida, USA, saw Kendall Holt take on Jaime Rangel in an interesting light welterweight clash. Rangel had previously been in with Zab Judah, losing dramatically in a single round, while Holt had only one stoppage loss to his name at the hands of Thomas Davis. This was Holt’s latest fight back on the comeback trail having already knocked out once talked about prospect David Diaz. The following is the complete round by round account of this evening’s main event between Kendall Holt and Jaime Rangel.

Round one: Rangel lands a good left to the body whole Holt sticks to a quick jab. Rangel, a southpaw, tries to get inside the orthodox Holt who has a much greater reach than Rangel. Holt snaps out a good jab and not much else happens until right at the end of the round when they go in to trade and Holt leaves his chin exposed. Rangel lands a huge counter left hand to deck Holt right at the bell, causing Holt to lose the round by a mrgin of 10-8.

Round two: Holt is on the back foot and Rangel is evading counters while trying to make his way inside. They trade and Holt gets the best of it with some sharp combinations. Rangel lands a good uppercut while Holt responds with a series of right hands. Both are taking chances when they come to trade as powerful shots fly and it looks like either man could hit the canvas at any time.

Round three: Holt opens with a good right hand. Holt is in the centre of the ring and trying to get Rangel to commit to punches so that he can counter. Holt’s jab is sharp. Rangel receives a warning for low punching. If Holt does not get chances from Rangel’s mistakes, it is worrying that he does nto seem able to create something by himself.

Round four: Holt starts off with another good right hand. Rangel is trying the straight left hand. Rangel finally lunges in to Holt’s liking and Holt tries to exploit the situation; Holt lands some very hard looking shots to Rangel’s head as the round comes to a close.

Round five: Holt is complaining to the referee a lot about rangel’s low shots. the fighters are getting closer together and more punches are finding their targets. Rangel is way off with his attempts at combinations. Holt gets in with another good right hand. Towards the end of the round, Holt stuns Rangel with more solid shots.

Round six: The first minute is very quiet in this round but Rangel tries to force the pace again while Holt just wants to stay away and pop out his jab. Holt does not seem to have much in the way of real ambition in this fight as he coasts around but does not land anything of consequence.

Round seven: Holt sticks to his jab and this makes for little action of any significance in this round. Rangel cannot get inside of Holt’s jab and it is a shame that Holt does not seem to have enough experience to know how to exploit the fact that he is controlling the fight from such range. Only a decent right-left combination from Holt punctuates this round.

Round eight: Rangel is still aggressive but almost completely ineffective. It is a rough fight as Rangel is trying to make something of it but Holt does not want to know about a fight here. Rangel does manage to trap Holt on the ropes in this round and a good period of trading ensues.

Round nine: They start trading body shots and Rangel goes to the head to some effect. Holt is trapped on the ropes again but Rangel cannot make a significant impact. Holt is complaining to the referee too much and it seems as if his head is not into the fight.

Round ten: The same negative pattern is continued by Holt in this round and yet, Rangel is still unable to find his way through the reaching jab of Holt. Rangel is warned for low punching again.

Round eleven: Holt is using the ring and staying away from Rangel as much as possible. Rangel is warned for more hitting behind the head. It is obvious that Holt is controlling the fight but it is a disappointment that he cannot do anything more than be dominant behind the jab.

Round twelve: Rangel traps Holt and a good trade occurs. Rangel gets a point deducted from his score for hitting behind the head. Rangel lands a good combination and Holt remains on the back foot for the rest of the round, simply surviving and seeing the time out of the round.

The final scores are: 115-110 for Rangel, 115-111 for Holt and the last card reads 114-112 for the winner by split decision, Kendall Holt!.

Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk