01.09.8 – By Dick Landis: Tommy Hill’s Red Leather Sports staged one of its monthly boxing cards Saturday evening (8-30) at the Bette Rae Thomas Recreation Arena in Charlotte. The burgeoning city in the Southeast features the NFL Panthers and the NBA Bobcats and is primed for regularly scheduled boxing shows..
The venue drew a sizeable fight crowd Saturday evening and primarily highlighting a number of younger boxers trying to advance their ring careers. Three “prospects” in particular gained victories and are worth noting: (1) Welterweight Jamar Patterson (8-0, 4 KOs) from upstate New York outboxed the erractic energy of Ohio’s Jason Jordan (6-24-3) exhibiting a patient attack of quick combinations to dominate the four rounds, yet gained just a majority decision from the judges.
(2) Exciting welterweight prospect Dominic DeSanto of Spencer, NC took the measure of Akron, Ohio’s James Justice (pro debut) scoring a first round knockout based solely on his powerful sopaw jab that he doubled, tripled and hooked driving Justice around the ring for a 2:55 stoppage. DeSanto (2-0, 2 KOs) exhibits speed of execution with a wicked left hook which he didn’t need Saturday night.
(3) The last fight of the 11 bout card went the scheduled eight rounds distance. It featured the machine gun punching of Charlotte’s jr. middleweight Noe Hernandez (4-1, 2 KOs) who took on the more experienced “Bang Bang” John Butler (21-3, 8 KOs) from Raleigh, NC. It was a step-up for Hernandez but he was not intimidated firing off a nonstop arsenal of punches to overwhelm Butler and to win an unanimous eight round decision.
Former top ranked heavyweight Calvin Brock, turned trainer, had a young jr. welterweight, Anthony Brown, in a four round pro debut fight. Although Brock wasn’t there, his father, Cal Sr., was Brown’s cornerman. It turned out to be a disappointment for the Brock team as Brown (0-1) was out-hustled and out-punched by the two-fisted fire power of New York’s Raphael Luna (1-2-1) to win a four round ananimous decision.
In another jr. welterweight fight: Troy, NY’s Broderick Antoine (3-6) used his sopaw style to outbox and to stop counterpuncher Eric Burke (6-20-2, 5 KOs) at the end of round two.
Among the jr. middleweights: Charlotte’s Ken Durham (4-5, 2 KOs) used his sopaw reach to aggressively attack and back up the shorter Brett Taylor (0-2) to score a four round unanimous decision… William Wilson (4-4, 3 KOs) used his height and reach advantage to outclass and stop Trent Miller (1-3) at 2:31 of the first round… John Williams (2-0, 2 KOs) swarmed all over William Gaines (3-8) putting him on the canvas three times to win a first round TKO at 1:28… And in a female jr. middleweight contest, Nicole Woods (5-3) of Stone Mt., Georgia with height and reach advantage, and a consistent jab, followed by a good assortment of punches, outpointed the tough, respected counterpuncher Bonnie Mann (11-9) over six rounds.
There was one four rounder at 160 lbs. with Brooklyn, NY’s Cory Jones (3-2) stopping William Armstead (2-7) of Columbus, Ohio at 2:05 of round two. The stocky, powerful Jones effectively used body and head shots to wear down Armstead… At heavyweight, scheduled for four rounds, “Big Daddy” Robert Broome (2-0, 1 KO), 234, delighted the hometown crowd with his imposing height to trackdown Wilson, NC’s Maurice Winslow (1-6-1), 222, to score a first round TKO at 2:36.
Red Leather Sports’ next boxing show in Charlotte is scheduled in late September.