Listen Now:
By: William Holmes
ShoBox presented another quality card on Friday night from the Paramount in Huntington, New York, which featured featuring upcoming and highly touted prospects. Star Boxing and Banner Promotions were the promoters for tonight’s card.
The first bout of the night was between Emanuel Taylor (15-1) and Raymond “Tito” Serrano (18-1) in the junior welterweight division. Serrano was coming off a devastating loss to Karim Mayfield and he badly needed a win to stay relevant in the junior welterweight division.
Both fighters came out in an orthodox stance, sporting black trunks with Serrano looked to be the slightly bigger and more muscular boxer. Serrano came out aggressive but was swinging wildly and inaccurately. As each round progressed, Serrano looked progressively worse. Serrano may have won the first round, but from the second round on Taylor continued to land more accurate counters and short hooks and uppercuts. Serrano slipped to the ground at the end of round three, but he slipped hard and it may have been a warning sign that Serrano was tiring.
Taylor really began to pick up the pace in round four, and he began picking Serrano apart with his short hooks. The end came in round six, when a multi-punch combination by Taylor hurt Serrano by the ropes and the referee jumped in to stop the fight. It might have been a questionable stoppage, as it was the first time Serrano was really hurt in the fight and he was still standing, but the lack of protest by Serrano at the stoppage indicated that the referee made the right decision.
Emanuel Taylor scored the TKO victory at 1:42 of the sixth round.
The main event of the night was between former Olympian Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade (18-0) and former title contender Freddy Hernandez (30-3) in the junior middleweight division. Andrade has had a lot of hype since he turned professional after the 2008 Olympics, and he showed tonight that he deserved that hype.
This was the first fight for Andrade under the tutelage of respected trainer Virgil Hunter. Andrade came out in a southpaw stance, looking like the much bigger fighter. He was also clearly possessed the quicker hands and was able to pop-shot Hernandez whenever he tried to bull his way forward.
Hernandez was able to land a few decent body shots, but for the most part he snacked on the crisp, accurate punches of Andrade. Andrade began landing hard straight left hands in round five and scored a knockdown in round six with a short straight right hand. However, Hernandez was able to get back to his feet and survive the rest of the round.
Andrade clearly won most, if not all, of the rounds, but to his credit he continued to go for the knockout. Hernandez was able to survive all ten rounds and the fight went to the judges’ scorecards, all three scoring it 100-89 for Demetrius Andrade.
