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By: William Holmes
Tonight was the first night HBO Boxing televised a Golden Boy Promoted card from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. This card didn’t have the star power of some previous Golden Boy Promoted cards in the Barclays Center, but on paper the main card featured some competitive matchups with title implications in the future.
The Barclays Center was offering a two tickets from the price of one special during Cyber Monday, but the arena still had to paper the upper sections of the arena.
The first bout of the night was between two undefeated prospects, Lamont Roach Jr. (4-0) and Alexander Charneco (2-0) in the lightweight division.
Roach was the better conditioned athelete of the two and Charneco was a southpaw. Charneco was telegraphing his punches early on and Roach was able to throw his punches straighter and with a little more accuracy. Roach had Charneco hurt as the round came to an end and Charneco had to take a knee to recover.
Roach opened up the second round with a solid right hook and was bringing the pressure. Charneco punches seemed to have lost some steam in the second round and he was visibly tiring. Roach’s combinations were crisp in the third round and he nearly scored another knockdown in the final round, but Charneco was able to make it to the final bell.
The final scores were 40-34, 40-35, and 40-35 for Lamont Roach Jr.
The next bout of the night was between D’Mitrius Ballard (7-0) and Tylon Burris (4-2) in the light heavyweight division.
Both boxers fought out of an orthodox stance, and despite having the better record Ballard looked a little stiff in the first round. He did connect with the heavier punches, but he wasn’t showing a lot of movement and was mainly following Burris around the ring.
Ballard did better in the second round and was applying more pressure with body head combinations. Burrris was knocked down near the end of the second round from a decent combination, and he appeared like he didn’t want to be inside the ring.
Burris was struck with a low blow at the start of the third round and nearly took the full amount of time to recover. Burris was beat up on by the ropes when he the bout resumed and he only took more punishment by the ropes. Burris went down for the second time of the night near the end of the third round and despite claiming the punch struck him behind the head the referee waived off the fight.
D’Mitrius Ballard won by TKO at 2:57 of the third round.
John Karl Sosa (11-0) and Jason Thompson (5-8-4) met next in the welterweight division. Thompson was from Brooklyn, NY and had a good number of fans in attendance.
Sosa showed good head and foot movement early on that continued through out the remainder of the bout. Sosa’s left eye looked like it may have been swelled up before the start of the bout, but he was cleanly out boxing Thompson and staying out of the way of his opponent.
Sosa continued to bob and move against the slower Thompson, but he was caught with a surprise two punch combination in the middle of the second. Sosa shortened up his punches which improved his accuracy. Thompson had blood coming from his mouth in the second round.
Sosa had Thompson wobbled in the third round with three straight right hands and simply outboxed Thompson in the middle to late rounds, despite the fact Thompson was better than his record suggested and showed a willingness to exchange.
Thompson needed the knockout in the final two rounds to win and he attempted to go for it, but Sosa was too elusive and slick to get caught with a desperation punch.
John Karl Sosa won by decision with scores of 80-72, 79-73, and 79-73.
Zachary Ochoa (8-0) fought Jose Miguel Castro (4-1) in the super lightweight division. Ochoa is a Brooklyn, New York native and has fought here several times before.
The first round started off as a feeling out round with both fighters throwing and landing jabs. However, in the middle of the round Ochoa connected with a left hook followed by a right hook upstairs that had Castro hurt. Another right hook sent Castro falling to his back, but he was able to get up and survive the round.
Castro was going to the wrong corner before the start of the second round and the ringside doctor had to check on him to make sure he could still continue. Ochoa connected with another looping right hand that sent Castro to the mat but not for a full ten count. Ochoa, surprisingly, did not follow up his second knockdown aggressively.
Castro had a welt underneath his left eye at the start of the third round but he connected with more punches in the third than the previous rounds. The fourth and fifth rounds were measured and effective rounds for Ochoa, who still surprisingly didn’t appear to step on the gas pedal to get Castro out of the ring.
Castro had no offense to offer in the last round and lost on the scorecards to Ochoa with scores of 60-52 on all three scorecards.
The final bout of the undercard was between Eddie Gomez (16-1) and James Winchester (16-10) in the super welterweight division. Gomez is from the Bronx, New York and also had a majority of the crowd cheering him on.
Gomez was slightly shorter than Winchester but hundred times more explosive. He showed a piston like jab in the first round before dropping Winchester in the corner with a well placed body shot. Winchester got back to his feet but was met with a voluminous number of punches and barely survived the round.
Gomez came out firing in the second round and Winchester was starting to show his frustration as he couldn’t lay a hand on his opponent. Gomez continued to assault the body of Winchester in the third round and showed he was a class above Winchester.
Winchester, however, kept the fight interesting by running his mouth inside the ring despite losing badly on the scorecards and even resorted to dirty tactics. Gomez had Winchester trapped in the corner at the start of the fifth round and tagged him with several combinations. The crowd started to chant his name as Gomez continued his assault on Winchester who was missing wildly with his punches.
Winchester was unable to do much for the rest of the fight except for paw out an occasional jab and stay in a defensive shell. Winchester was deducted a point in the seventh round for a low blow. Both boxers continued to exchange taunts in the final rounds, but it was Gomez who was winning the punching exchanges and Winchester that was getting visibly frustrated.
The judges scored the bout 100-88 on all three scorecards for Eddie Gomez.
