By Dick Landis… Tommy Hill’s Red Leather Sports finished a busy year of boxing staging nine bouts Saturday evening at the Bette Rae Thomas Recreation Center in downtown Charlotte. Hill is the first homegrown promoter to bring a steady diet of boxing shows to the burgeoning southern city with even bigger fight plans for 2009..
Saturday’s array of fighters featured mostly younger boxers attempting to climb the ladder to future recognition – the main focus of Red Leather Sports’ shows. The main event, however, highlighted 19 year old Dominic DeSanto of Spencer, NC. and Akron, Ohio’s ring veteran, 31 year old Jason Jordan.
Southpaw DeSanto appeared to be leading in points with more effective, scoring punches, yet he had to deal with the awkward, lunging, grabbing attack offered by the more experienced Jordan. Going into the final round, Jordan knew it was now or never and his rushing, desperate attack pushed DeSanto back against the ropes where a series of lefts stung the youngster, buckling his knees, as he sat down on the ropes.
Referee, Bill Clancy eyed DeSanto carefully as he rose to his feet. Allowed to continue, Jordan again rushed to finish the shaken DeSanto at which point Clancy stepped in and stopped it at 1:23 of the eighth round. With the last minute victory, Jason Jordan picked up the North Carolina jr. welterweight belt, his overall record is 7-28-4, 1 KO. Dominic DeSanto suffered his first loss in a young career (2-1, 2 KOs).
The co-feature saw local popular heavyweight “Big Daddy” Robert Broome use his height and size (6’5, 240) to overwhelm Nathaniel Brunson in a display of brute strength at 2:03 of the first round within the scheduled four round heavyweight affair. Broome is now 3-0, 2 KOs, while Brunson is 0-2.
Two scheduled six round bouts ended with knockouts. At jr. middleweight, 23 year old Broderick Antoine chased down the backpeddling Ronny Glover and finally trapped him long enough to unleash a series of combos ending it at 2:02 of the second round. Southpaw Antoine goes to 4-6-1, 3 KOs and Glover slips to 2-7.
In a six round middleweight contest, southpaw Harrison Cuello countered with body & head combinations to stop the lunging, bomb-thrower, Chris Cook. Cuello taunted Cook throughout yelling, “come on! come on!” When Cook responded, Cuello accurately countered, finally stopping Cook at 2:03 of round five.
In a bunch of scheduled four round bouts: Jr. middleweight John Williams of Charlotte advanced his young career (3-0) with a unanimous decision over Macon, Georgia’s Alex Deon (0-4).
At jr. middleweight, Utica, New York’s Andy Mejais (3-0) outpointed Torrence King (1-1) of Columbus, Ohio over four rounds. This was one of the more entertaining bouts of the evening with the combination punching Mejais using his height and reach to fend-off the tough, pressing King.
The evening’s card opened with two, quick, first round knockouts: Jr. welterweight Raphael Luna of Albany, NY. used left hooks and straight rights to finished off Tommy Gibbes (3-3) in the first round; and lightheavyweight Yathomas Riley (4-0, 3 KOs) of Florida showed good range and effective body work to stop Norman Johnson (1-4) at 2:06 of the first stanza.
Red Leather Sports’ Tommy Hill plans to start early in 2009 with a series of boxing shows that will run throughout the year. He hopes to put Charlotte, NC on the boxing map!