By Joe Harrison, at ringside
In a very exciting bout, featherweight Martin Honorio (23-3-1, 12 KOs) defeated Rogers Mtagwa (22-11-2, 16 KOs) by a split decision to become the new USBA champion on Friday night’s “Cicero Chill” card at Cicero Stadium near Chicago.
Throughout the entire bout, both fighters were swinging violently at each other, willing to dish out everything possible. Although both men had their moments, Honorio was able to use his long reach to land the more effective punches. He controlled the early rounds by throwing hooks at the Mtagwa’s face and body, eventually adding uppercuts to his repertoire.
In the fourth round, Mtagwa gained some ground, landing very accurate punches and forcing the attack. The fighters ignored the sound of the bell ending the round, swinging wildly at each other until the ref finally split them apart. Mtagwa continued to dictate the action as Honorio was clearly beginning to get tired. In the eighth round, Honorio was deducted a point for excessive rabbit punches.
By the tenth round, both men were fatigued as the action began to taper off. However, with ten seconds left in the round, they began to swing wildly at each other, once again landing punches after the sound of the bell. During the championship rounds, each fighter used every last ounce of energy to land solid punches. The majority of those punches were landed by Honorio. At the end, one judge scored 114-113 for Mtagwa as the other two scored 115-112 and 114-113 for Honorio.
Also on the card, light heavyweight Tavoris Cloud (13-0, 12 KOs) defeated Douglas LaFontsee (7-2, 5 KOs) by 4th-round TKO when the fight was stopped due to a gash above the right eye of LaFontsee. At the start of the fight, Cloud failed to impress the fans as he spent most of the time defending himself while LaFontsee brought on a relentless attack. During the second and third rounds, LaFontsee continued to pour on the pressure, but Cloud was attacking in spurts and throwing punches of extremely high magnitude, stopping LaFontsee in his tracks.
In the fourth round, Cloud finally began to fight more aggressively, and then unleashed a series of power punches at the head of LaFontsee. Just when a knockdown seemed inevitable, the ref called for a time out and revealed that a giant steam of blood had come pouring out of a cut above LaFontsee’s right eye. The ringside physician confirmed that the cut was too major for the fight to continue.
Earlier in the evening, lightweight Vicente Escobedo (11-1, 10 KOs) knocked out Ramon Guevara (7-10, 5 KOs) in the 5th round of their scheduled 8-round bout. Even though Guevara seemed very experienced and confident, Escobedo was far more talented and skilled, using quick hand-speed and power punches to his advantage. In the fifth round, Escobedo landed a combination and then a sharp left hook which hurt Guevara and sent him down to one knee. He stayed down for the count.
Also, lightweight Mike Gonzalez (9-0, 8 KOs) was victorious over Marcus Brashears (4-3-1, 2 KOs) by a 6-round unanimous decision. Brashears had a good first round, coming out aggressively and bringing the fight to Gonzalez. From the second round onward, it was Gonzalez who dictated the pace of the fight, never giving Brashears a chance to breathe. All three judges scored it 59-55 for Gonzalez.
In a featherweight bout, Barbaro Zepeda (7-8-1, 2 KOs) defeated Hassan Wasswa (3-5-2, 0 KOs) by a 6th-round TKO. Wasswa went down in the third round, and never seemed to fully recover. Zepeda had a point deducted in the fourth round for low blows. In the sixth round, Wasswa went down again, and did not want to continue.
