By: William Holmes
Top Rank Promotions’ Friday Night Knockout on Tru TV returned tonight from the State Farm Arena in Hidalgo,Texas and featured a super middleweight bout between Gilberto Ramirez and Derek Edwards in the main event of the night and a lightweight fight between Diego Magdaleno and Jose A. “Chelo” Gonzalez.
Diego Magdaleno (27-1) and Jose Gonzalez (24-1) opened up tonight’s broadcast in a bout for the vacant WBO International Lightweight Championship.
Gonzalez was the taller and longer boxer of the two and he weighed in two pounds heavier than Magdaleno in unofficial weigh ins before the bout.
Gonzalez came out in an orthodox stance and Magdaleno was a southpaw. There wasn’t much action in the first two rounds as both boxers were hesitant to throw and were simply feeling each other out. There so little action in fact that the referee had to briefly stop the fight in the second round to remind the participants to start throwing punches at each other.
Magdaleno started to open up in the third round at the urging of his trainer Joel Diaz and connected with some good combinations to the ropes that featured clean left hooks. Magdaleno attacked the body in the fourth round and was the more active fighter, but Gonzalez was attempting to time his counter punches and occasionally landed a left hand.
Diaz could be heard yelling at Magdaleno to go out and get the title if he wants it, and Magdaleno came out more aggressive than in the earlier rounds. But Gonzalez did switch to a southpaw stance in the fifth round but it was not very helpful for him.
Magdaleno landed a sharp counter left hand upstairs in the sixth round that visibly gave him some confidence, but he suffered a small cut over his left eye during the sixth round.
Things got strange in the seventh round as Magdaleno started off strong with a straight left hand and was starting to take over the fight. However, a body shot, which was ruled a low blow by the referee, sent Gonzalez to the mat crawling on all fours allegedly in pain. He was given five minutes to recover but at the end of the five minutes he told the referee he did not want to continue.
However, replays showed the punch did not appear to be a low blow.
Diego Magdaleno won by TKO at 2:43 of the seventh round.
Gilberto Ramirez (31-0) and Derek Edwards (27-4-1 ) met in the main event of the evening in the super middleweight division. Edwards is best known for upsetting Bodou Jack, but he is thirty five years old and eleven years the junior of Ramirez.
Ramirez’s height advantage was very noticeable at the start of the first round and he used it well in the opening rounds of the fight. He stayed on his combinations from the outside and was able to avoid body punches of Edwards for the most part.
Ramirez continued to land combinations in the second round and it was punctuated with two consecutive straight left rounds. Ramirez had an excellent third round and was tagging Edawrds with hard combinations as the round came to an end.
Ramirez had Edwards backing up to the ropes in a defensive posture early in the fourth round and his punches were snapping the head of Edwards backwards. Edwards was warned for a low blow in the fourth round, but he was badly hurt when both boxers connected with a left hooks but it was Edwards who was wobbly and close to being finished as the fourth round came to an end.
Edwards came out aggressively at the start of the fifth round by landing several jabs followed by a cross. But Ramirez was able to re-establish control with his range and went back to landing clean straight left hands that left sweat flying off the head of Edwards. Ramirez was able to hurt Edwards again in the final minute of the fifth round but Edwards was able to survive.
Edwards’ corner could be heard urging him to throw more punches before the start of the sixth round, but his face was showing the signs of the punishment he had been taken and Ramirez continued to control the action inside the ring.
Edwards was clearly out of the fight by the seventh round and was not able to offer much of an effective attack against Ramirez. Edwards took a beating from Ramirez by the ropes in the eighth round and not many people would have blamed the referee if he decided to stop the fight.
Edwards clearly needed a knockout to win the fight in the final two rounds, but instead most viewers were watching wondering if the referee was going to stop the fight. A stoppage, for either boxer, never came.
Ramirez won by decision with scores of 100-90 on all three scorecards.
