Gamboa Survives Late Scare, Hangs on to Decision Farenas

Mike Sloan at ringside - Unbeaten former Olympic gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa survived a late scare to hang on to topple the ultra tough Michael Farenas. The Cuban used superb speed and counterpunching to offset most of what the Filipino threw at him and won a rather lopsided unanimous decision.

Gamboa fired off blistering combos and powerful punches throughout and looked on the verge of scoring an early rounds knockout. A flurry, punctuated by a right cross late in the second knocked Farenas off his feet. Farenas was saved by the bell but Gamboa tore into him in the third. Already cut on the corner of his right eye, a clash of heads opened another laceration above his left. Eating many clean punches at this point, it seemed like a matter of time before Gamboa shut off the lights.

Farenas hung tough, though, and stormed back into the contest when he rocked Gamboa in the fourth with a left hand. A few more straight left hands found a home on Gamboa’s jaw at that point, but Faranes just couldn’t do enough real damage to fully turn the tides in his favor.

Gamboa dropped Farenas again in the seventh after a wild flurry clipped the Filipino’s jaw, forcing his glove to touch the canvas. Farenas was in trouble again, but he fought his way out of a brutal slugfest that lasted thirty or so seconds.

Gamboa rocked Farenas again in the ninth, but disaster almost struck when his too-reckless attack opened the door for a perfect counter left hook. The punch buckled Gamboa’s knees and he crumbled onto the canvas. When the Cuban rose to his feet, he was in serious peril and about to be knocked out. Farenas dashed in for the kill, but Gamboa intelligently clinched whenever he could. From that point forward, Gamboa played it safely and decided to out-box Farenas until the end, where he was awarded the unanimous decision. The scores all favored the unbeaten super featherweight; they were 117-109, 118-108 and 117-108, allowing Gamboa to improve to 22-0 with 16 KOs. SecondsOut.com also scored it 117-109 for Gamboa. With the loss, Farenas fell to 34-4-4 with 26 KOs.

A lightweight matchup that left a lot be desired, the aesthetically unpleasing duel between unbeaten Mercito Gesta and Miguel Angel Vazquez all but sucked the life out of an already listless crowd. Vazquez boxed on his heels for twelve rounds, nullifying virtually everything the more aggressive (and less effective) Gesta threw his way.

Gesta spent much of the first half of the fight walking his foe down, but he threw mostly one punch at a time. Add to the mix the fact that he couldn’t cut the ring off properly and the end result was a dull encounter if there ever was one.

Vazquez, the crowd favorite from Guadalajara, boxed beautifully from the outside. His jab was on point, he rattled off combos in spurts and his defense was near flawless from the start. He boxed circles around the constantly-posturing San Diego fighter, who never really picked up his offensive output even when it was obvious he needed to close the fight strongly.

In the end, the three ringside judges all favored Vazquez (25-3, 19 KOs) via tallies of 117-111, 119-109 and 118-110. SecondsOut.com also had it 119-109 for Vazquez. The loss was the first of Gesta’s career, who now stands at 26-1-1 with 14 KOs.

In what was the prototypical cat versus mouse matchup, featherweights Javier Fortuna and Patrick Hyland didn’t exactly live up to the expectations of a terrific fight. The duel opened the live pay-per-view telecast, but after two rounds of little action inside the ring, the still-filling arena grew restless. Boos and jeers cascaded onto the fighters and considering that both men entered the contest with unbeaten records, more was expected.

Hyland, from Dublin, Ireland, stalked and chased the elusive Fortuna from the start, but his inability to properly cut off the ring prevented any real fireworks from exploding in the ring. Hyland appeared to grow a bit restless as the fight wore on and he eventually became more aggressive with each passing round. Still, Fortuna was slick and made himself an unavailable target for much of the fight, though when he let his hands go, he tagged his foe cleanly.