Once again, we joined the Thompson Boxing Promotion fights at the Doubletree Hotel for their show, Path to Glory. The main event featured the undefeated Angel Ruiz (16-1, 12 KOs) going up against Javier Flores (15-2, 13 KOs) in a welterweight bout that was scheduled to go eight rounds.
The first round was pretty uneventful. The fighters were testing each other out a bit, with Angel being a bit more aggressive at this early stage. He liked to use combinations quite a bit straight away as well. all that changed in the second, when a quick and very hard right hand put Ruiz down and out at 2:02 of the second round, handing Angel his first career loss.
Lightweights took to the ring as George Acosta (8-1, 1 KO) stood across the ring from Roberto Almazan (9-13, 4 KOs), in a fight scheduled to go six rounds. In the first three minutes Acosta appeared to be the more skilled fighter and put some leather on Almazan. Things were pretty much the same in the second. Almazan shows quick hand speed at times, but he doesn’t always land those punches.
Acosta was getting off his punches at a rate of about five or six to one compared to Almazan. At one point in the third he had Roberto in the corner and was landing repeated body shots on him. In the fourth George was still displaying his superiority with combinations and accuracy. Acosta would also smother Roberto with a barrage of punches, and all of that continued into the fifth round.
We moved into the sixth and final. The domination of Roberto continued. Still, we went to the scorecards. All three of the judges saw the fight 60-54, all for Acosta.
In a bout that was scheduled to go four rounds in the super lightweight division, Alec Zavala (4-0, 3 KOs) faced off against Carlos Apodaca (3-14-2, 1 KO). It didn’t need anywhere near that much time however, as a hard and well-placed body shot put Apodaca down and out at 1:02 of that opening round.
Ivan Zarate made his professional debut against Nery Garcia (1-9) in a super bantamweight fight that was scheduled for four rounds. Before the half way point in round one, a huge right hand by Ivan put Garcia on the canvas. He was able to get up and finish out the round, however. In the second Nery was able to land some shots on Zarate, something he should not have been able to do. But Ivan’s greenness showed on several occasions.
Third round, and Zarate, while already having proved that he has power, was excited and wild throughout a lot of the fight, which allowed Garcia to hit him. The fourth round was more of the same, and after a very low blow landed by Zarate on Garcia took up some time, the fight came to a close and we went to the scorecards. All three judges saw the fight 38-37, all for Zarate.
Starting off our evening we were in the lightweight division, and we saw a battle of the Garcia’s, as Golden (11-0-2, 6 KOs) faced off against Hector (14-7-3, 8 KOs). This fight was scheduled for six rounds. These two came out strong, with both of them displaying many combinations. Hector landed some hard body shots as well. In the second round they were still just loading up on their punches with a lot of back and forth action.
Nothing really changed in the third. Both of the fighters were keeping up a strong pace and landing to the head and body of each other. Just when it seemed as if Hector had the upper hand, Golden would explode. This is a pretty good little fight. Neither man has backed up and they continued to land hard shots.
With two rounds to go, the slugfest never ended, as these two warriors stood toe to toe and fought hard for all six rounds. We went to the scorecards. All three judges saw the fight the same, 57-57. Pretty unusual that all of the judges would see a fight a draw, but this was absolutely a very, very close fight.
Photos courtesy of Cynthia Saldana
