By Mark Vester
At the UIC Pavillion in Chicago, 22-year-old light heavyweight Mike Lee (1-0, 0KOs) made his pro debut with a four round unanimous decision over Emmitt Woods (0-4-1, 0 KOs). A score of 40-36 was down on all three cards. Lee had a lot of hype riding into this fight from his promoters, Top Rank. The Notre Dame wiz with a grade point average of 3.8 is looking to become a major star in the sport.
Also on the card, welterweights Jesus Soto-Karass (24-4-3, 16 KOs) and Gabriel Martinez (24-1-1, 13 KOs) fought to a no-contest. A clash of heads opened up a bad cut under the left eye of Martinez and the fight was stopped.
Ivan Popoca (14-0-1, 10 KOs) won a five round junior welterweight war over Jose Luis Soto-Karass (19-15-1, 17 KOs). Popoca started fast by taking the fight to Soto-Karass, but he was dropped in the fourth when an accurate shot caught him sleeping. He shook it off to batter Soto-Karass in the following round for the win.
Hot junior welterweight prospect Jose Benavidez (6-0, 6 KOs) stopped Ronnie Peterson (2-1, 2 KOs) in the first round.
