07.02.05 – By Wray Edwards: Friday night, February 4th turned out to be a festive evening of pulchritude and mild violence for the citizens of Jacksonville, Florida. As one of the smallest cities to host the NFL’s Super Bowl, the people of JAX decided to go all out to make everyone involved feel welcome and well served. Due to a shortage of hotel rooms, the resourceful citizens provided cruise ships on the Saint Johns River estuary as an unique answer to the need for accommodations. Actually, according to many Patriots and Eagles fans, that was a refreshing departure from the usual urban hotel scene..
Fireworks, sports celebrity flag football games, a John Daley golf tournament, a Playboy yacht party and the debut of Oscar De La Hoya’s “Super Fight” series were just some of the week’s events swirling around the big game on Sunday. The boxing attraction was held at the University of North Florida’s campus arena in southeast Jacksonville. Local management by Juba Entertainment, in concert with Fox Greenberg Public Relations out of New York, brought all the necessary elements together for a rare boxing event in River City.
The main event listed, which came in the middle of the evening’s bouts, was a fight between lightweights Javier Jauregui (48-11-2, 34 KO’s) from Chatito, Mexico and William Morelos (16-2, 11 KO’s), but Morelos was replaced by a Mexican born fighter named Christian “Filoso” Favela (9-6-3, 7 KO’s) from Los Angeles. They fought all ten rounds in unremarkable fashion with Jauregui receiving a UD from the judges.
The real main event was the more anticipated bout featuring Mexican born Super Middleweight Librado Andrade Ornales, 26, (21-0, 15 KO’s) from La Habra, California versus 32 year-old Columbian Nicolas Cervera (35-5-1, 32 KO’s). Andrade pulled off his shirt and looked ready to rumble as the Telefutura cameras closed in during the intros. Cervera, who was recently TKO’d by Jermain Taylor, and has a rather spotty record against mostly .500 fighters stepped up to try his luck. He managed to survive until midway in the third round whereupon Andrade, who had been abusing Cervera throughout, began in earnest to whip up on the Colombian’s bleeding head.
This fight drew the loudest responses from the crowd as the undefeated Andrade went for his 22nd win. Cervera covered up and sought protection from the ref and the fight was quickly over. Andrade’s NABA and NABO titles, as well as a WBO win over Tito Mendoza, place him at least in the journeyman ranks. Should he meet the likes of Lacy, Pemberton, Beyer or Calzaghe in the near future, we shall see what this boxer really has to offer. His style was balanced and aggressive which pleased the fans.
Speaking of pleasing the fans. The second loudest responses of the evening, and there were a lot more of them, came when the massive bevy of ring card girls strutted their stuff. Unlike the ring card girl at the Spinks-Judah fight, who was dressed like a penguin, these Playboy Bunnies and Venus USA models brought the house down in their sizzling bikinis. In many instances not one, but two absolutely beautiful women carried two number cards around the ring.
For those of you who have seen the movie “Mask” perhaps you will recall the scene where Jim Carey’s character first sees Cameron Diaz, and his tongue rolls out across the table. Pretty much every guy in the house went numb with desire. There were about ten or eleven of the most beautiful women we had ever seen in our lives smiling down on us, like goddesses, from the alter of violence. I was half expecting the whole arena to turn into a pillar of salt. A heady mix of estrogen and testosterone filled the house. Boxing purists may scoff, but this was world-class contrast between the beauties and the beasts.
Back to the beasts. The evening’s events began as bantamweights Kevin Hudgins (from Jacksonville) UD’d Floridian Sam Rohena in a four round duel. The second fight was the Librado Andrade – Cevera affair. Third for the night was another Andrade (Oscar – no apparent relation) in a Bantamweight six rounder with Paulino Villalobos. Oscar eked out a majority win. Coconut Creek, Florida’s Middleweight Julien Townsend was bested in a six round bout versus Juan Salazar from Durango, Mexico by a SD. Welterweight Jose Felix of Savannah, GA won a unanimous decision over Charles Hammac of Philadelphia, MS. Also Featherweight Robert Daluz of Jacksonville UD’d Jonothan Oquendo in a four rounder.
The crowd included many sports luminaries, Eagles and Patriots fans as well as appreciative and unappreciative locals. The football theme opened the event with the mascots of the Eagles and Patriots and Jaguars having a mock fight frolic in the ring for five minutes or so. There were some pretty humorous moments. Some of the fights were pretty good and some of them were stinkers. It was, however, the first time many citizens of Jacksonville were able to attend a live boxing event at any level. Everybody had a fun time while the security people and boxing and arena management were all courteous and fairly efficient.
The apron seating for the media was great with chairs and a nice table for the cameras and note pads. Eastside spoke with all three Judges and found them to be friendly and hard-working. There was one humorous moment when a local photog touched one of the judges on the shoulder and told him to stop leaning around so much while he was trying take pics. The judge firmly explained who he was as well as the pecking order around a boxing ring, and we got back to the match. There were a few rough edges, but as this was the first Golden Boy Productions co-event foray as a Super Bowl tie-in, things went pretty well.
Eastside Boxing would like to thank Michelle Fox, Sarah Greenberg, and Stephen Bender of Fox Greenberg PR, NY, NY, as well as all the kind folks at Jacksonville’s Juba Entertainment (including Rebecca and Adrian) who gave us such convenient access to the Boxing event. Their generous invitations to the John Daley Golf event, the “Snooperbowl” performance and the game itself were greatly appreciated.