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By: William Holmes
In Las Vegas it’s customary for the crowd to not show up until at least the televised portion of the pay per view card starts, and tonight was no different. However, Top Rank placed some of their prized prospects on tonight’s card, and they were matched up against opponents that should give them an interesting challenge at this point of their careers.
The opening bout of the night was a ten round bout for the WBC Continental Americas Light Heavyweight Title between “Irish” Joe McCreedy (15-6-2) and “Irish” Sean Monaghan (20-0).
Joe McCreedy is trained by Mickey Ward, and he showcased some of the heart that Ward is famous for. Monaghan started off the bout with an effective and accurate jab, and he was able to block most of McCreedy’s punches. He remained patient in the second round looking for his opening, and was getting the better of McCreedy whenever they exchanged shots.
Monaghan scored a knockdown in the third round after landing a hard left hook to the body of McCreedy. McCreedy was able to get up as the round ended, but continued to take a pounding in the fourth round from Monaghan, who was starting to use McCreedy for target practice.
Monaghan scored another knockdown in the fifth round with a left hook to the body. McCreedy was in obvious pain, but got back to his feet only to be knocked back down with another body shot. The referee saw enough and waived off the fight at 2:25 of the fifth round.
The next undercard bout was a middleweight bout between Publio Pena (2-1) and the Brazilian 2012 Olympic Silver Medalist Esquiva Falcao (1-0) in the middleweight division.
Falcao is part of the recent mass signings of former Olympians by Top Rank Promotions, and Pena appearered to be outclassed early on. Falcao showed good head movement in the first round, and landed a sharp straight left hand to the head of Pena several times in the first round.
Falcao was easily able to stay out of the range of Pena’s punches in the second round, and he mixed up his combinations to the body and head. Falcao threw what seemed like a fifteen punch combination at Pena in the middle of the round, but Pena was able to block a lot of them.
Falcao continued his strategy of throwing punches in bunches in the third and fourth rounds, but they did appear to lack any significant fight stopping power. Pena failed to offer up much of an offense the final two rounds and was outworked and out landed by the busier Falcao.
Esquiva Falcao cruised to a decision victory with scores of 60-54, 60-54, and 60-53.
Adrian Perez (10-4-1) and Oscar Valdez (9-0) met next for the NABF Super Featherweight Junior Title. Valdez opened up the bout with a clean right hook, and then immediately attacked the body of Perez. It was clear early on that Valdez’s punches were significantly more powerful than Perez, and Perez was backing away from Valdez early on.
Valdez’s punches had a lot of snap to them, and he continued to batter Perez from corner to corner in the second and third round. He mixed up his combinations well to the body and head, and when they landed they could be heard across the arena.
The end mercifully came in the fourth round when Valdez knocked Perez down with a vicious body shot. Perez failed to get up, and Valdez won by knockout at 1:23 of the fourth round.
The final untelevised bout of the night was between Mike Montoya (4-2-1) and Oleksandr Gvozdyk (0-0) in the light heavyweight division.
Gvozdyk looked like a smaller version of Ivan Drago inside the ring, and fought like him. He opened up with a crushing hook, and it immediately became apparent that this fought was going to end by stoppage. Gvozdyk was patient, and stopped the bout with a straight right hand that sent Montoya crashing to the mat. The referee stopped the fight immediately giving Gvozdyk a knockout victory at 2:55 of the first round.
