By: William Holmes
The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York was the host for tonight’s Golden Boy Live on Fox Sports 1, and on paper it was one of the best cards that Golden Boy has presented to date on Fox Sports 1. Golden Boy was wise to take advantage of Super Bowl weekend being in nearby New Jersey by putting on a stacked weekday card.
Photo: USA Today
The first bout of the night was between the undefeated Gary Russell Jr. (23-0) and the overmatched Miguel Tamayo (14-7) in the junior lightweight division. Gary Russsell has been criticized for taking on overmatched and inferior competition despite being a clear title contender, and tonight was just another easy win for Gary Russell Jr.
Tamayo was the taller and longer fighter, and he actually had a decent first round and showed he was here to fight. But Tamayo could not match Russell’s hand speed or power . Russell was complaining of flu like symptoms but he did not show it inside the ring.
His right hook had Tamayo backing up whenever it landed and his jab was crisp and accurate. He mixed up his combinations to the body and head and by the third round he was simply dominating the fight. Tamayo was taking some very hard shots in the first three rounds but was able to stay on his feet.
However, Russell hurt Tamayo with a right hook in the fourth round that had him reeling backwards into the corner and he followed it up with another right hand to the chin of Tamayo that sent him down to the canvas. He stayed seated for the ten count and Gary Russell Jr. won by knockout at 1:04 of the fourth round.
The co featured bout was between two undefeated boxers in the junior middleweight division, Bronx, New York native Eddie Gomez (15-0) and Daquan Arnett(11-0). Gomez obviously had most of the fans in attendance supporting him.
This bout started off slowly, and the crowd could be heard booing and whistling the cautious first round. Arnett was controlling the distance well in the early rounds and Gomez did well whenever he was able to get inside. The pace picked up in the third round and the action in the ring started to favor Gomez.
Gomez’s right hand started to land with increasing accuracy and his confidence increased as the fight progressed. Gomez mixed up his combinations better than Arnett and was able to land several hard body shots that opened up some punches upstairs.
By the end of round six Gomez had landed 84 punches in comparison to the 59 Arnett landed. Gomez’s body work was paying off and he dropped Arnett with a body shot in the seventh round. Arnett was able to get back to his feet and survive the onslaught from Gomez for the remainder of the round, but he was falling behind on the scorecards.
Arnett’s nose was bleeding badly at the end of the seventh round but he was able to rebound from the knockdown and had a good eighth round. He focused more on his shoulder roll defense and highlighted his eighth round with several crisp straight right hands.
The last two rounds were close, but Arnett needed at least a knockdown to have a chance at winning. He was unable to do so.
The final scores were 98-91, 98-91, 97-92 for Eddie Gomez.
The main event was for the WBA International Welterweight Championship between Vicious Victor Ortiz (29-4-2) and Luis Collazo (34-5). Victor Ortiz has not fought in nearly eighteen months, and his ring rust showed early on.
Victor Ortiz appeared to be anxious in the first round and at times may have been overly aggressive. Both boxers landed hard body shots on each other, but it was a close round and Collazo slightly out landed Ortiz.
In the second round Collazo connected with a good check right hook early, and both boxers targeted the body again. Collazo also connected with a good left uppercut and his double jab left cross combination was landing. This round featured good exchanged, but the final exchange in the second round featured a perfectly timed right hook from Luis Collazo that sent Victor Ortiz to the mat. He was unable to get to his feet and an emotional Luis Collazo celebrated inside the ring.
Luis Collazo shocks Victor Ortiz with a knockout at 2:59 of round 2.
