Alex Bray never shifted out of first gear Friday night for two reasons: 1) He didn’t have to, and 2) he didn’t want to.
The 19-year-old Bray went the speed limit in his 10-round main event against Rodrigo Damian Coria at Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida. All three judges scored the fight for the unbeaten Bray, from nearby Melbourne, Florida, by the scores of 100-90, 97-93 and 99-91 in their junior middleweight fight.
Bray says the reason for his measured approach was that he wanted to avoid getting hit by anything he got caught with in his previous fight, a stoppage of Lesther Espino that, despite ending inside a round, led to Bray taking punches he thought he didn’t need to.
“My game plan was to stay calm. My last fight, I rushed in and got caught with some shots that I shouldn’t have gotten caught with,” Bray, now 11-0 (8 KOs), said in his post-fight interview.
“I had a lot of obstacles and trials coming into this fight, but with God, I got through it.”
He had no trials to deal with in Friday’s fight, as Coria – a southpaw from Argentina – plodded forward, occasionally getting to the 6ft 3in Bray’s midsection but more often taking uppercuts and pot shots from distance.
Bray is the younger brother of Kamar Bray, a 7-0 (4 KOs) welterweight prospect.
Dainier Pero experienced little resistance from Donald Haynesworth as he cruised to a second-round stoppage win in their 10-round scheduled heavyweight bout.
Pero, 13-0 (10 KOs), used his southpaw jab to keep Haynesworth, 19-10-1 (17 KOs), at bay, where he was a sucker for the left cross and right hooks that followed afterwards. The 26-year-old Pero, a native of Cuba now living in Miami, couldn’t miss, as he painted Haynesworth’s face with blood that poured from his nose and mouth.
The bloodied nose was so bad – it filled a white towel in between rounds – that the 43-year-old New Yorker Haynesworth remained on his stool rather than come out for Round 3, losing inside of two rounds for the second time in three fights.
Pero has now won two straight by second-round corner retirement after surviving a scare in 2025, in which he was dropped twice by Cesar Navarro but survived to win a decision.
Earlier in the night, Gabriela Tellez scored her second stoppage in three fights – but not under the circumstances anyone would have wanted.
Tellez had her arm raised after the first round of the eight-round lightweight fight when her opponent, Crystal Garcia Nova, of the Dominican Republic, remained on her stool, claiming an injury to her right shoulder.
The injury occurred after Tellez, 7-0 (3 KOs), rocked Nova with a pair of right hands. Then, while attempting to clinch, Nova used her right arm to grab Tellez’s arm, injuring herself in the process.
Tellez, 19, of San Antonio, is the sister of Reina Tellez, who challenged Amanda Serrano for the unified featherweight title last month. Nova, 26, dropped to 11-5 (10 KOs) with the loss, her fourth by stoppage in her past five fights.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
