In the main event of ESPN’s Friday Night Fights, Junior Welterweight Emanuel “Tranzformer” Taylor defeated Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield via unanimous decision with scores of 97-92 and 95-94 twice. Both fighters were coming off loses going into the fight, and getting the win meant additional pressure for the fighters.
Mayfield came out aggressive in the first rounds, swarming Taylor from round one and using his awkward style to throw him off his game. Taylor adjusted and settled down, and started dictating the pace in the middle rounds. Taylor’s combinations had Mayfield backing up and resorting to throwing one punch at a time. In Round 8, Mayfield landed a right hand that dropped Taylor and forced the 10 count. Taylor regained his composure and went on to win a decision in a disputed fight.
With the win Taylor improved to 18-2-0 (12KOs) and gets back in the winning column after losing a decision in his previous outing to fellow stable mate and now WBO Champion Chris Algieri. Mayfield fell to 18-2-1 (11KO’s) and suffers his second consecutive loss.
In the co-feature, Junior Welterweight Cletus “The Hebrew Hammer” Seldin (13-0,10KOs) took on his toughest test in veteran Bayan “The Mongolian Mongoose” Jargal (17-5-3,11KO’s) and although it was an exciting fight for 3 rounds, it had an anticlimactic ending when the fight was declared a no-contest after Jargal suffered a bad cut over the right eye due to an accidental head-butt.
Other Results
Welterweight Anthony Karperis defeated veteran Ariel Duran over four rounds, winning a unanimous decision by scores of 39-37 on all three judges’ scorecards. With the win, Karperis improves to 7-2-0 (3KO’s) while Duran moves to 7-7-1 (4KO’s).
Super middleweight Jason “Monstruo” Escalera defeated Sweden’s Naim Terbunja via six round split decision. Escalera improves to 14-2-1 with 12KO, while Terbunja drops his first loss and moves to 7-1-0.
Junior middleweight Wendy Toussaint (5-0-0 KOs) defeated Courtney Pennington (7-1, 4KOs) via six round unanimous decision. Scores were 58-56 on all three scorecards.