By: William Holmes

Tonight was another special Thursday edition of ESPN’s Friday Night Fights live from the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida. Warriors Boxing was the promoter for tonight’s card.

The first fight of the night was between Rogelio Medina (32-5) and Jonathan Gonzalez (17-0) in the super middleweight division. Gonzalez is a former member of the 2008 Puerto Rican Olympic team, while Medina was 2-3 in his last five fights, and this was only his second fight out of Mexico.

Medina started off strong and was more active than Gonzalez. He mixed up his combinations to the head and body of Gonzalez and looked like he showed up in better shape. Medina caught Gonzalez off guard in the first round by being more active.

The second round was closer, with Gonzalez landing his combinations and rights uppercuts. Medina’s left hook was landing, a lot, but he was not turning his punches over and they were not landing with the force of Gonzalez’s punches. The action continued in a phone booth in the third round, but Medina continued to outwork Gonzalez.

Medina slowed down a bit in the fourth round and Gonzalez was landing hard shots. But Medina picked up his activity in the fifth, but Gonzalez continued to land hard punches. The rest of the fight played out in a similar fashion, with Medina landing the larger volume of punches while Gonzalez landed the harder shots.

If you were to judge a fight by the damage to a boxer’s face at the end of the bout, you would have thought Medina won. However, the fight was close and a split decision was awarded to Gonzalez with scores of 96-94 for Medina, 97-93 for Gonzalez, and 96-94 for Gonzalez.
The main event of the night was between Victor Cayo (32-4) and Roberto Garcia (34-3) in the welterweight division.

This was the heaviest that Cayo has ever come into a fight, and this was the first time Garcia had fought in the welterweight division since 2007. Needless to say, Garcia looked to be about two weight classes bigger than Cayo inside the ring.

Cayo started the bout of well but catching Garcia with quick pop shots whenever he tried to come forward, but Garcia was landing heavy body shots and banging punches off the guard of Cayo. Cayo however, was sticking and moving well.

Garcia came out more aggressive in the second round and it was clear that he wasn’t fazed by Cayo’s punches. Garia’s punches clearly moved Cayo backwards, and he was able to block a lot of Cayo’s shots. Garcia remained the aggressor in the third round and tried to trap Cayo by the ropes. Cayo was able to avoid the pressure of Garcia in the early parts of the fourth, but Garcia’s pressure was more effective near the end of the round.

The referee warned Garcia for pushing with his elbow in the fifth round, but afterwards Garcia began to really dominate the fight. Cayo’s was moving backwards and was not doing much damage.

Garcia landed heavy body shots in the beginning of the sixth round and was chasing Cayo around the ring. He hurt Cayo with a hard left hook that sent him moving backwards, and he followed it up with another combination that sent Cayo stumbling to the ropes. The referee immediately jumped in and stopped the fight.

Cayo looked like he could have fought on, but he was hurt at the time. Garcia wins by TKO at 2:38 of the sixth round.

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