Ponce De Leon, Ouali highlight Las Vegas undercard

By Mike Sloan in Las Vegas: Many expected Daniel Ponce De Leon to have little trouble with journeyman Cornelius Lock and probably score some sort of brutal knockout. Ponce De Leon’s power was expected to be too severe an advantage for the slick Lock and even if it took two or three rounds, the Cuauhtemoc, Mexico native would eventually fold Lock over like a lawn chair.

Going into the tenth round of their featherweight affair, however, De Leon still hadn’t figured out Lock’s tricky, awkward, frustrating style and his face was swollen and bloody. Not many outside of Lock’s immediate circle had expected this, but Lock came into this fight to prove everybody wrong and to score what would amount to be a sizeable upset.

Lock was hard to hit and repeatedly he was able to land hard, stinging lead right hands and short, sneaky left hooks. At times he caught De Leon coming in; other times he rattled him on the way out. De Leon had his moments, too, but Lock was on his A game and took it to the sizeable betting favorite from the start. He darted in an out like a snake’s tongue and made his much slower opponent look oafish at times.

At the conclusion of the ten allotted rounds, Lock looked like the winner whereas the sullen De Leon almost hung his head, his expected victory hanging with doubt in the hands of the ringside judges. Luckily for him, the judges liked his aggression and thought he did enough to win the contest as he was awarded with a unanimous decision of 96-94 (twice) and 97-93.

There were plenty of rounds that could have gone either way, but Lock (19-5-1, 12 KOs) seemed to do enough to possibly steal away the surprise decision. SecondsOut.com saw it 95-95 but it surely could have gone to either fighter. Lock was a bit inactive at times whereas De Leon (39-2, 32 KOs) pressed the issue and threw many more punches. Though Lock, of Las Vegas, clearly landed more of the more visible punches, the decision rendered wasn’t atrocious.

In just under two minutes, there were three knockdowns in the amazing welterweight war between Said Ouali and Hector Saldivia. Ouali walked into a short right hand merely fifteen seconds into the contest and was deposited flat on his back. Ouali beat the count but was a bit unsteady when the fight continued. Saldivia, sensing an early highlight reel knockout, went for broke and tried his best to close out his woozy opponent. Saldivia landed some scattered punches but nothing was hard or clean enough to get the job done.

Ouali eventually was able to clear his head and defend the incoming attrition and fire punches back, but they were only glancing. In total control of the action, Saldivia started to slow down and pick his shots rather than swinging wildly for the fences. He gathered himself and waited for the perfect chance to end the fight.

Then disaster struck.

Ouali threw a loopy left hand that detonated on Saldivia’s chin, a punch that sent the Argentinean onto the canvas. The tables had turned in an instant and once Saldivia rose back onto his feet, it was clear as glass that he was in much worse shape than was Ouali when he was felled. Saldivia staggered around the ring and tried to correct his vision, but there was no hope. An overhand right dropped him a second time and once he got back up, he stumbled back into a corner. Referee Russell Mora had no choice but to stop it.

It was tremendous display of power and courage for Ouali. He arose from near catastrophe and scored an impressive first round stoppage of the slight favorite. The official time of the TKO came at 1:47 of the stanza, allowing Ouali to kick off the telecast in fantastic fashion. Ouali, from Las Vegas, improved to 27-3 with his 19th pro knockout. Saldivia fell to 31-2 with 24 KOs.

In the swing bout, Daniel Reece won a unanimous four round decision over Angel Soto. Reece was more active throughout and landed the harder shots and was awarded the verdict via tallies of 39-37 on all three cards. Both fighters made their pro debuts in the contest and both were fighting out of Las Vegas.

You can contact Mike Sloan at www.facebook.com/mikesloan19 or email him at msloan@sherdog.com