DALLAS – If this city’s partisan-Mexican crowd came out Saturday to see one of its own blast away a rugged but overmatched opponent in the last fight of its untelevised undercard, it got its wish when Sonoran Oscar Valdez (6-0, 5 KOs) brought a properly leveraged right cross counter square on the face of Houstonian Gil Garcia (5-5-1, 1 KO) in the second round of their featherweight match, Saturday’s seventh, dropping Garcia on his back and marking as inevitable Valdez’s victory.
Instants after referee Laurence Cole brought the fighters together, Valdez, showing the sort of thrill for combat that pleases fans and makes promoters salivate, swarmed Garcia, striking him with any punch he could land and bringing a merciful stoppage at 2:32 of round 2.
Valdez has an exciting style and desire for contact that should make him a friend of fans in years to come.
MIKAEL ZEWSKI VS. DAMIAN FRIAS
Completing a hat-trick of undefeated Top Rank prospects, in Saturday’s sixth match Canadian Mikael Zewski (20-0, 15 KOs) boxed and slugged and generally outclassed Florida welterweight Damian Frias (19-8-1, 10 KOs), ultimately decisioning him by three scores of 77-74.
Despite applying plenty of commitment to his punches, and throwing them in cleaver and accurate combinations, Zewski never appeared to have Frias imperiled, after dropping the Floridian in the first round. Rounds 2 through 7, in fact, were dull enough affairs to have much of the American Airlines Arena crowd expressing its loud disapproval. All such noise as that stopped in the final round.
Appearing to be winded by his own onslaught in the preceding rounds, Zewski put whatever he had left behind his blows in round 8, opening himself to accurate and surprisingly hard counters from Frias – whose punches appeared to lack commitment most of the night. Despite clipping Zewski a number of times in the eighth, ultimately Frias did not have enough to cast doubt on the outcome, and the decision went the Canadian’s way.
MATT KOROBOV VS. OSSIE DURAN
Saturday’s most pleasant surprise came in its fifth fight when Russian middleweight Matt Korobov (20-0, 12 KOs), once more highly touted than he is now, performed a vicious stoppage of New Jersey’s Ossie Duran (27-11-2, 10 KOs) at 0:51 of round 3. After a slow start that brought nearly unanimous boos from the Dallas crowd, Korobov landed a twisting counter left cross from his southpaw stance in the closing minute of round 2, one that dropped Duran and seemed to surprise both fighters.
Korobov attacked from the very beginning of round 3, showing an intensity of assault unpredicted by his record’s paltry knockout ratio, winging and digging left crosses to Duran’s midsection. Duran dropped quickly, his face showing the wincing hopelessness brought only by a liver shot, and the match was over. And Korobov was on his way back towards important matches in the middleweight division.
VANES MARTIROSYAN VS. RYAN DAVIS
Buried in the third match of a nine-fight card in Texas was likely not where 2004 U.S. Olympian Vanes Martirosyan (33-0-1, 21 KOs) anticipated his career would be if he came to his 33rd professional fight still undefeated, and yet, that was where he was, dropping and stopping Illinois super welterweight Ryan Davis (24-11-3, 9 KOs).
Martirosyan landed most every punch he threw, including batting-cage right hands with which he was unable to miss the hopeless Davis, and succeeded in looking impressive as he needed to, en route to a corner stoppage at 2:01 of round 2.
UNDERCARD
The knockout of the night came in Saturday’s fourth match, when local super bantamweight Tony Lopez (4-0, 2 KOs) dropped South Carolina’s Jonathan Hernandez (1-3-1, 1 KO) at 0:38 of round 4, and dropped him in a way that brought ringside doctors on the canvas before the 10-count was finished. Hernandez, who had fired back valiantly through the opening three rounds, finally caught the southpaw Lopez’s left cross in a way that ended his night emphatically.
Saturday’s second fight, a welterweight tilt between Puerto Rican welterweight John Karl Sosa (7-0, 5 KOs) and Mexican Ramon Alejandro Pena (7-3 5 KOs), was an overmatched affair in which Pena landed very few right hands and absorbed many more. The end came at 1:54 of round 2, when a Sosa left hook found its mark on Pena’s liver and rendered the Mexican wholly unable to continue.
The evening began on a fine note, with Austin middleweight Kurtiss Colvin (8-1, 7 KOs) stopping Arlington’s Angel Sigala (8-4, 2 KOs) at 0:22 of round 5.
Opening bell rang on a sparsely populated American Airlines Arena at 6:03 PM local time.
