By James Stillerman at Ringside – Former IBO super middleweight title holder, Peter “The Pride of Providence” Manfredo Jr. kept his latest comeback alive, as he outwork and out landed the Seattle, WA native, Walter “2 Guns” Wright in front of a sold out hometown crowd at the Twin River Event Center in Lincoln, Rhode Island en route to an ten round unanimous decision victory by scores of 98-93, 100-90 and 97-93. “Unfinished Business” was sponsored by Jimmy Burchfield`s Classic Entertainment and Sports, Inc.
“I`d give myself a B- tonight. I`m glad I won, however, I wanted to fight better tonight and get a knockout in front of all my fans, but it just didn`t happen” said Manfredo Jr. the runner up on season of the Contender. “It was difficult fight for me because I trained for Joey Spina who is a strong powerful puncher and then three weeks before the fight, Spina got hurt and I had to train for a totally different fighter with a very different fighting style in Wright who is a slick counter puncher. I`m professional and I made the best of the situation.”
Manfredo Jr. controlled the action throughout in this super middleweight bout and his jab and hooks were extremely effective. His punching power caused Wright`s right eye to swell in the second round and by the eight round the eye was completely closed and blood was coming from his nose. Wright was able to land effective combinations on Manfredo Jr. from time to time but Manfredo Jr. was more active with landing his punches and with his superior punching power was able to backup Wright for much of the fight. Manfredo Jr. improved his record to 39-7, 20KOs and is one win short of 40 victories. He has won eight of the last nine fights. Wright fell to 14-4, 7KOs, in his first fight in over two years.
“Wright is a great fighter and I expected that. That is why he fought on the Contender and why no one wants to fight him, except for me,” said Manfredo Jr. “I`m not young anymore. I`m going to be 33 years old this year and have been fighting for the last 13 years and now I`m working a full time 40 hour job, making it even more difficult to train. Nevertheless, I won and it keeps my comeback alive.”
Wright, a former contestant on Season Two of the Contender fought his first fight since 2010 when he registered a six round unanimous decision over Joshua Snyder. He remained active in sparring with James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo and Carlos Molina for the last two years.
” I`m disappointed and upset I didn`t win tonight, however I was impressed with my performance because I took this fight on two weeks notice when I really needed six weeks to train for this fight and this was my first fight in over two years, ” said Wright. “This bout demonstrated I can fight with anyone, so I`m getting right back in the gym and hopefully I can get an opponent much sooner than this time.”
Manfredo Jr. in winning the battle of former Contenders, got his second consecutive victory since coming out of retirement. He defeated Rayco Sanders in a ten round unanimous decision in November 2012 to shake off over a year of ring rust.
“I`m fighting for the fans tonight and I want to thank all of them for their continuing support of me through the years. They mean the world to me and this victory tonight was for them,” said Manfredo Jr.
Joe Gardner upped his record to 11-5-1, 1KO while Reynaldo Rodriquez dropped to 6-6-1, 3KOs in a battle of Woonsocket, RI natives. This was an extremely competitive and closely fought, back and forth six round super middleweight bout. Gardner received three scores of 58-56 for the unanimous decision victory.
Thomas “Soldier” Falowo from Pawtucket, RI garnered the technical knockout over Julio Garcia from Boston, MA by way of Ricon, Puerto Rico as Garcia`s corner threw in the towel after the fifth round of their scheduled six round middleweight bout as his face was covered in blood. This was a great back and forth action packed fight but one that Falowo was landing the more powerful punches and beat Garcia to the punch throughout the bout. Falowo improved his record to 9-1, 7KOs while Garcia fell to 6-4, 3KOs.
Emmanuel Medina upped his record 3-3-1, 3KOs with a technical knockout victory in his super middleweight fight over Benny Costantino whose record dropped to 7-3, 4KOs, after the referee stopped the bout with 2:47 in the second round because Costantino was unable to continue to fight due to an injury. After Medina, hailing from Quincy, MA landed a series of combinations on Costantino, from Warwick, RI, Costantino awkwardly fell in the middle of the ring after it appear he pulled something in his left leg. Medina knocked Costantino down for a second time after a serious of combinations and after this knockdown, the referee halted the contest since Costantino could barely stand.
Kevin Cobbs from Burlington, VT improved his record to 7-1, 2KOs over Paul Gonsalves from Hardwick, MA who fell to 4-3, 3KOs in an action packed four round light heavyweight matchup. Cobbs garnered the split decision over Gonsalves by receiving two scores of 39-36 while Gonsalves got one score of 38-37. Cobbs also knocked down Gonsalves with a short right hand at the end of the second round.
Patryk Szymanski kept his undefeated record intact as he won a six round unanimous decision over Antonio Chaves Fernandes by three scores of 58-56, 59-55 and 60-54 in their welterweight bout. Szymanski from North Bergen, NJ by way of Wroclaw, Poland, upped his record to 6-0, 2KOs in a fight he dominated throughout, while Fernandes from Brockton, MA fell to 2-9-1.
Vanessa Greco from Queens, NY is 1-2-2 and Noemi Bosques from St. Petersburg, FL is 1-0-1 after they fought a hard earned four round majority draw in their bantamweight bout with the scores being 39-37 for Greco and two scores of 38-38.