By Bill Calogero, The Daily Sports.com: BJ Flores won a unanimous twelve-round decision over Darnell “The Ding-A-Ling Man” Wilson to capture the USBA Cruiserweight Title as the Main Event of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights broadcast live from Dover Downs in Dover, Delaware. Flores was able to follow his game plan, which consisted of using his superior arm length and boxing skill to control Wilson’s power to win the bout. Flores stayed on his toes, snapping his jab following it up with an occasional right hand to the head of Darnell Wilson for most of the twelve round bout..
Wilson seemed extremely one dimensional during the entire fight as he stalked Flores. He followed Flores around the ring, waiting and hoping that BJ would leave an opening for one of his devastating punches. That opening never came or at least Wilson was not able to capitalize on it if it had. Between Darnell’s headhunting and Flores’ safe, conservative approach, this was a less than exciting contest to say the least.
One Judge scored the fight 115-113; one saw it at 116-112 and the third had it 118-110, all in favor of BJ Flores. Flores keeps his undefeated record in tact, improving to 21-0-1 (13 KOs) while Darnell Wilson drops to 22-6-3 (19 KOs).
The co-featured event put two journeymen against each other. Although both of their records were less than impressive, the fight was entertaining. Dhafir Smith improved to 20-16-6 (4 KOs) with a unanimous decision win over Rayco Saunders in their eight-round Light Heavyweight bout.
One judge saw the fight at 77-75, while the other two had it 79-73, all in favor of Smith. TheDailySports.com scored the fight a DRAW, and to be honest cannot see how or what the ringside judges were watching.
Saunders drops to 15-9-2 (7 KOs).
Both fights were competitive, but in MY OPINION, the production of ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights continues to be poor and that baffles me.
They have slipped considerably in the past six months. For a group that has been working together for a while now, the announcers seem to stumble over each other constantly and the studio work of BK is almost non-watch-able.
This week they seemed to put more effort in promoting Steve Cunningham, who was BK’s in studio guest, than they did on the fights they were broadcasting and we were watching. At one point, they actually had Cunningham on the screen DURING a round asking him questions. First the quality of the bouts disappeared. Now the quality of the show itself is all but gone. What’s up with ESPN?
On Thursday night, Kendall Holt won a unanimous ten-round decision over the game, but clearly done, Ben Tackie in a Jr. Welterweight contest. The bout was the main event of Top Rank’s FIGHT NIGHT, broadcast live from the Hard Rock Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on the Versus Network.
Holt clearly won the fight, even though Tackie was the aggressor throughout the ten-round bout. Ben was pressing the fight, but simply was not able to react quick enough to win the fight. In my opinion, it was painfully obvious that Ben should retire. He is a tough as nails veteran, as he has always been, but it is clearly over for him.
To see him go through the motions, which I am sure he can do in his sleep, but not have the ability to throw more than one punch at a time, was very sad. I feel that Ben Tackie was a great fighter in his day and has given a lot to the sport of boxing, but his days are over. I certainly would hope that the people around him will help direct him to a “life after boxing” now.
Although Ben made this fight close on the scorecards, in reality it was not close at all. Two judges scored the fight 98-92 while the third had it even at 95-95, giving Kendal Holt the Majority Decision Win. Holt improves to 23-2 (12 KOs), while Tackie drops to 29-9-1 (17 KOs). Holt made the fight closer by not throwing enough punches either, but that has always been his weakness.
In a very one-sided bout, Vanes Martirosyan stopped Jorge Munoz at 2:20 of the third round of their scheduled ten-round Jr. Middleweight contest to earn a TKO victory. Martirosyan improves to 19-0 (13 KOs) while Munoz loses for only the second time of his career, dropping to 20-2 (12 KOs).
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