The excitement started quickly on Saturday night in Corpus Christi, Texas for Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28KO’s), former WBO featherweight champion. It began in the second round when he got caught with a straight right hand from former WBO super featherweight champion Roman “Rocky” Martinez at the end of the round, and he went down. He quickly got up and finished the round, not really hurt, except probably his pride.
Coming into this fight, Garcia’s pride probably felt worse after winning by a fourth round knockout against Juan Manuel Lopez (33-3, 30KO’s) for what was supposed to be his first defense of his WBO featherweight title in June of this year. Unfortunately for that fight, Garcia lost the title before he stepped into the ring because he didn’t make the weight. This was a major disappointment in his career, so he decided to move up from featherweight to super featherweight. This time he had no problem making the weight and he showed his superior boxing skills on Saturday night.
In the third round, Garcia picked up his game and landed a lead right hand to the head of Martinez and started to connect much better with his left hand jabs. He continued landing his left hand jabs for the next several rounds as he began to pick up the pace of the fight.
It wasn’t until the sixth round that Garcia landed a huge left hook to the head of Martinez that rocked him against the ropes. Toward the end of the round, Garcia landed a crushing right hand that made Martinez step backward, but the backpedalling Martinez shrugged it off.
Before the seventh round, ring commentators had Martinez ahead 58-55, even though he had lost a 10-8 second round knockdown, although it looked much closer. In the seventh round, Garcia was beginning to get stronger and the momentum was on his side. Garcia began putting on the pressure in this round as he continually backed up Martinez and landed several right hands to the champions head.
Garcia is trained by his brother, Robert Garcia, 2012 Trainer of the year, and a former junior lightweight champion himself. Robert Garcia has also trained numerous champions including Nonito “the Filipino Flash” Donaire (32-2, 21KO’s), who was on the co-main event of the card.
As the eighth and final round began, Martinez was beginning to backpedal as Garcia continued to land combinations. Although Martinez attempted to slip shots from Garcia he got caught by a huge left hook to the body and he went down. He went down grimacing with pain as he was counted out at 56 seconds of the eighth round as Garcia captured the WBO super featherweight title.
DONAIRE WINS BY TKO IN NINTH ROUND:
After a seven month layoff and after getting schooled by WBA and WBO super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (12-0, 8KO’s) back in April of this year, former WBO super featherweight champion Nonito “the Filipino Flash” was on the comeback trail. It led him to Corpus Christi, Texas where he was taking on 37 year old Vic Darchinyan (39-6, 28KO’s), a former foe he had already knocked out back in 2007. This was supposed to be a supposed warm up fight to continue Donaire’s eleven year winning streak, that is, the one he had before meeting up with Rigondeaux.
It was much more than a walk in the park for Donaire as some boxing enthusiasts might have thought. Donaire struggled throughout the fight as Darchinyan held his own in an attempt to hopefully win the rematch.
Behind on the cards, and going into the ninth round, Donaire finally caught Darchinyan with a crushing left hook to the head that sent him to the canvas. After taking the count, Darchinyan attempted to hang around, but Donaire sensed the kill and went for it. He pummeled Darchinyan in the corner with numerous left hands until referee Lawrence Cole stepped in to stop the fight at 2:06 of the ninth round.
The third championship fight of the night was between undefeated light middleweight Demetrius Andrade (20-0, 13KO’s) against formerly undefeated Vanes Martirosyan (33-1, 21KO’s) for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title. Although Andrade was taken down in the first round by a left hook by Martirosyan, he was able to dominate most of the fight. Andrade went on to win by a split decision as the cards read were 114-113, 117-110 for Andrade, and 115-112 for Martirosyan.
Other boxing results on the card:
Alex Saucedo (10-0, 7KO’s) won by KO in the 3rd round against Steve Hall (6-4, 6KO’s)
Nicholas Walters (22-18) won by TKO in the 4th round against Alberto Garza (25-5, 20KO’s)
Erick De Leon (5-0, 2KO’s) won by unanimous decision against Jesus Aguinaga (1-1)
Oscar Valdez (6-0, 6KO’s) won by TKO in the 5th round against Jesus Lule (6-6, 1KO)
Oscar Cantu (5-0, 1KO) won by unanimous decision against Roberto Ceron (3-0, 1KO)
Vic Pasillas (5-0, 2KO’s) won by KO in second round against Salvador Perez (2-2-1, 1KO)
Promoted by Top Rank, and shown on HBO, this was another Texas boxing event promoted by former heavyweight champion George Foreman with Foreman Boys Promotions. Foreman, originally from Marshall, Texas and now residing in Houston, Texas has teamed up with Top Rank promotions. Keep an eye out for more upcoming professional bouts in Texas this coming year.
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