Rash of quick finishes ignite start of ProBoxTV's L.A. card
ProBoxTVLOS ANGELES – When prospects perform this well, the minds of boxing handlers race with possibilities.
As Saturday night’s ProBoxTV card opened at USC’s Galen Center with five early finishes from the first six bouts, that’s precisely what transpired.
Unbeaten welterweight prospect Emilio Garcia, 23, of Laredo, Texas, unleashed a steady stream of hurtful rights on Luis Guerrero Garcia, gaining the second-round TKO thanks to a destructive run of rights mostly to the head.
Emilio Garcia’s stoppage victory came 1:13 into the second, as he improved to 5-0 with five KOs while Luis Garcia dropped to 6-1.
Amador Mendez put a charge in the early crowd by slamming a right hand to the head of Jonathan Martin Morales Mendez and then finishing him with a wicked left to the gut that ended the bout just 46 seconds into the lightweight action.
Mendez, 9-0 (5 KOs), a Guatemalan descendant from Austin, Texas, is just 21 and managed by Robert Diaz.
Featherweight Jose Mejia, who trains under Martinez’s former trainer-of-the-year cornerman Brian “BoMac” McIntyre, opened the show by defeating Aram Alberto Menindez Pedraza 40-36 on all three scorecards.
Mejia 3-0 accepted the fight despite Pedraza 1-1 weighing more than three pounds beyond him at Friday’s weigh-in, intent to prove McIntyre’s prediction that he’s a special prospect.
Mejia impressively worked the body and set up clean rights to the head doing so to start.
He showed his guile by shrugging off consecutive hard lefts to the head to hammer Pedraza with a slew of hammer rights to the face in the third, using the fourth as a fuller showcase of skill to seal the outcome.
New Jersey left-handed featherweight Ramon Ordonez 2-0 followed, producing a sharp, powerful display ended by a hard left to the head and right body shot that ended the bout against Mexico’s Rafael Alejandro Ibarra 1:33 into the second round.
Ordonez’s final left to the head knocked the mouthpiece out of Ibarra 1-1-1.
In junior-middleweight action, Missouri’s Malachi Ross 6-0 (5KOs) weakened Semajay Thomas 11-3 with punishing body shots in the second round, adding head-jarring blows that paced Ross to a third-round stoppage capped by a flurry.
The end came 28 seconds into the third for the 20-year-old Ross.
Lance Pugmire has been a full-time boxing writer for nearly 20 years, serving now as BoxingScene’s U.S. Senior Writer and assistant producer for ProBoxTV’s “BoxingScene Today.” Pugmire capped a near 20-year career at the Los Angeles Times (sports investigations, NHL/MLB beat work, law enforcement/courts and boxing/UFC) to join The Athletic, and then USA Today. Pugmire’s stint at The Times started with the first Israel Vazquez-Rafael Marquez fight and the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather Jnr then-record pay-per-view, leading through a slew of ringside assignments at major bouts, including Mayweather-Pacquiao, Mayweather-Canelo and the Canelo-Golovkin trilogy. Lance’s appreciation for boxing is rooted in his admiration and appreciation for the fighters, gladiators who have proven to be the most forthcoming and candid of all the athletes he has interviewed over a career dating to 1990. Lance was honored to be named the 2022 winner of the Boxing Writers Association of America Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence and he’s collected many BWAA writing awards in categories ranging from breaking news to deep-dive long features.
