By: William Holmes
ESPN’s Friday Night Fights had their series season finale at the Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Oklahoma on Friday night. Their last card featured a bout between contender Donovan George (23-2-1) and last minute replacement Dionisio Miranda (21-7-2) and a main event of Carlos Molina (20-5-2) and Damian Frias (19-5-1).
Friday Night Fights is famous for giving upcoming prospects a chance to make their names known and former title contenders a chance to move their way back up to the top. However, tonight’s victors were facing opponents who had a slim chance at beating them.
Donovan George and Dionisio Miranda locked horns in the super middleweight division in the opening bout of the night. Miranda was a last-minute replacement for George, and it was his first fight in nearly 14 months. Surprisingly, Miranda did not show signs of ring rust early on.
George was the aggressor in the fight and worked Miranda’s body with solid hooks, staying busy behind his jab. Miranda had a good second round, landing a quick left uppercut, while his straight right hand found its way through George’s guard. But George began to show the disparity in talent in the fourth round: he landed a hard 1-2 combination and began to block most of Miranda’s punches. George also had the support of the crowd as they reacted positively to nearly ever punch that he landed.
George’s combinations continued to move Miranda backwards, and a few right hands by George had Miranda wobbly. George was landing harder shots by the sixth round and blistered Miranda with some clean combinations at the end of the round. Miranda and his corner quit the fight after the sixth round and gave Donovan George a TKO victory over an opponent few expected him to lose to.
There was a quick swing bout between Villier Quinonez (5-0) and Eddie Tigs (1-3-2) in the light heavyweight division. As their records suggest, Quinonez had little problem dispatching Tigs by a four round unanimous decision.
The main event was between Carlos Molina and Damian Frias in the junior middleweight division. Molina is a skilled technical boxer who’s much better than his record suggests. He’s also been the victim of some highly questionable decisions in recent memory, but his performance tonight was so dominating that there was no question as to who the victor was at the end of the fight.
Molina had little problems with the southpaw style of Frias and he won every single round. Molina kept up a steady attack throughout the fight and mixed up his offense with shots to the body and head. Frias never looked comfortable in the ring with Molina, and was not able to muster up any type of effective offense.
Frias was fighting defensively, and was not offering up much to keep Molina from landing rough body shots. Frias was able to momentarily stun Molina in the seventh round with a left hand, but Molina regained his composure and continued to easily outbox his overmatched opponent.
There was no surprise when the finals scores of 100-90 in Molina’s favor on all three of the judges’ scorecards were announced.
