A heated crosstown welterweight rivalry was decided tonight in front of a near sellout crowd at Hard Rock Event Center at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, as Miami’s Harold “King” Calderon (17-0, 10 KOs) out-worked and out-punched Miami’s formerly undefeated John David “Pretty Boy” Martinez (10-1, 8 KOs)
Fighting in the 10-round main event of Kris Lawrence’s Heavyweight Factory Boxing “Hometown Throwdown,” event, Calderon cruised to a dominant 10-round decision by scores of 99-91, 100-90 and 100-90.
A combination-punching southpaw, Calderon had too many weapons for Martinez. He ripped to the body and head for 10 rounds, while Martinez offered up the occasional one/two.
Both fighters are enormously popular in the region and their fans tried everything to drown each other out all fight.
In the night’s 10-round super lightweight co-main event, Honolulu’s undefeated Logan “The Korican Kid” Yoon moved his record to 12-0, 10 KOs, with a routine unanimous decision over Colombian veteran Luis E. Flores (24-10, 20 KOs).
The promising 19-year-old Yoon, the WBO-NABO Youth Super Lightweight Champion and WBO #13-rated contender, learned a lesson about veteran survival tactics, as he followed the reluctant Colombian around the ring the entire fight, looking for opportunities to engage. Flores landed the occasional right hand on the southpaw Yoon, but mostly threw pot shots that missed and then quickly circled out of range of any return fire.
Yoon was cut over the left eye by a headbutt, but still managed to dominate the infrequent action. The scores were 99-91, 97-93 and 97-93.
Two-time Olympic medalist Ivan Dychko of Hollywood, Florida, via Kazakhstan, moved his perfect record to 7-0 (7 KOs) with a one-punch demolition of once promising Maurice Harris 26-22-3 (11 KOs) of East Orange, New Jersey.
Dychko, who said he was hoping to learn something from the experienced Harris, landed a glancing right hook and Harris elected to look for a soft spot to land. Disappointed fans voice their disapproval of Harris’ non-effort. The time of the 10 count was 1:39.
Two featherweights went to crowd-pleasing war over city-wide bragging rights, and after six rounds of “bombs away” action, Jessy Cruz (now 13-7-1, 5 KOs) ended up taking a unanimous decision over fellow Miami resident Raul Chirino (11-8, 6 KOs).
The all-action Cruz can’t seem to be in a bad fight and this one was no different. He was down and badly hurt near the end of round one. Chirino was badly staggered at the end of round two and down from a right hand in round three.
The scores were 58-54, 57-55 and 57-55, but this fun fight could have easily been called a draw.
A single left hook by Miami’s Livan Navarro at 2:47 of round one brought an end to what was shaping up to be a decent eight-round welterweight showdown against the Dominican’s Julio C Reynoso.
The pair came out swinging for the fences and Navarro (now 8-0, 6 KOs) hit it first with the sledgehammer left hand to the jaw of Reynoso (now 12-2, 7 KOs) who dropped and took the full 10 count on one knee.
In a fight where both fighters appeared to injure themselves, popular Miami slugger Ulysses Diaz was forced to go the distance for the first time, but still managed to win his light heavyweight four-rounder over Chicago’s Israel Echevarria by unanimous decision (scores of 39-37, 40-36 and 40-36).
As in many fights tonight, the judges’ verdicts were no indication of the closeness of the fight. The two warriors each did their share of good work. The heavily muscled Diaz (now 6-0, 5 KOs) landed the harder punches occasionally while favoring his right arm. The crafty Echevarria (now 3-5, 2 KOs) snuck in a number of sneaky shots, despite an injured left leg.
To put it mildly, Echevarria was very unhappy with the decision.
In an all-Miami super middleweight scrap, Cuban import Irosvani Duvergel (3-0, 2 KOs) won a four-round unanimous decision over “better than his record” Elie Agustama (6-9, 3 KOs).
Duvergel, who had never seen the second round of a professional fight previously, dropped Agustama in the first, but the durable Agustama got up and made a great fight of it. The free-swinging pair brawled furiously the rest of the way. The scores (40-35, 39-36 and 39-36) didn’t reflect the competitiveness of the combat.
In a back-and-forth six-round lightweight battle, Coral Springs, Florida’s Dustin Arnold (5-1, 1 KO) won a closely contested unanimous decision over Miami’s Daniel Placeres (now (6-1, 5 KOs).
Arnold landed the cleaner, harder shots to offset the superior work rate of the shorter Placeres. Plenty of crowd support for both fighters. The scores were 60-54, 58-56 and 59-55
Undefeated Lawrence Newton, of Boynton Beach, Florida, chose to brawl inside for all six rounds of his super bantamweight showdown with tough Mexican, Pedro Melo of Tijuana.
The result was an entertaining if one-sided brawl with nice punches landed both ways. In the end, Newton (10-0, 6 KOs) kept his perfect record by scores of 60-54, 59-55 and 59-55. Melo falls to 17-19-2, 8 KOs) with his respectable performance.