Lamont Roach, JR Puts Another W On His Fight Record

By Joshua “City” Brewer (At Ringside)

Lead Writer Joshua “City” Brewer with Lamont Roach, JR.

Ringside Report was live at the MGM National Harbor for the latest in installment of Golden Boy Promotions on ESPN and the night didn’t disappoint.

The main event of the evening featured hometown favorite Lamont Roach, JR., 16-0, 6 KO’s, as he took on Rey “The Technician” Perez, 21-9, 6 KO’s. Both fighters were fairly cautious in the first round as they felt each other out. Each chose to lead with their jab, setting the tone for a technical fight. Perez worked his way inside with combinations to the body in the second round. Roach, JR., was on the defensive before landing a solid right uppercut that Perez himself seemed to acknowledge as a good shot. Roach, JR., showed solid jab work early in the third before landing a solid left hook that woke up the crowd.

Roach, JR., capped the round off with a solid left and right hook to the body of Perez towards the tail end of the round. Roach, JR., started to open things up with a set of combinations early in the fourth. Roach, JR., closed the round with a few clean hooks to the head.

Roach, JR., had a very solid fifth round as he continually beat Perez to the punch landing a variety of clean, hard punches. Perez, though, continued to remained poised. Roach, JR., continued to put his punches together in the sixth round as he was able to land hard combinations and seemed intent on stopping Perez, though Perez refused to back down.

Roach, Jr., got the better of Perez in a solid flurry of exchanges at the end of the seventh round as he increasingly applied damage. While the pace of the eight round was slower, Roach, JR., continued to land cleaner shots as he continued to outbox Perez. The ninth was another solid round for Roach, JR. The two fighters accidentally bumped heads right as the bell rang. Roach, JR., closed the show with clean boxing in the 10th and final round of what was a solid performance and good test against a fighter who wasn’t willing to back down. When the scores were announced they read 99-91 on all three judges’ cards in favor of Lamont Roach, JR.

“I feel good after a god performance like. In the second round, he hit me with a really good body shot. But I stayed composed and got myself together. I’d been through that before, and I’ve sparred with bigger people. True fighters know how to recover and get back to their game plan, and that’s what I did. I used the time to recover, and got back to what I was doing to get the victory.” Golden Boy will continue to showcase their rising talent in 2018.

The co-feature of the evening was a super featherweight fight between Jose Lopez, 18-2-1, 13 KO’s, against Avery Sparrow, 9-1, 3 KO’s. Sparrow was throwing the majority of the shots in the first round though nothing of significant note was landed. Lopez chose to stalk and reserve the majority of his punches. Lopez started to open up in the second round as he pressed Sparrow to the body. While he still didn’t throw many shots, the shots that Lopez did land seemed to have some pop. Sparrow landed a solid left hook in the third that snapped Lopez’s head. Sparrow turned up the pace in the fourth round and repeatedly landed a number of clean hooks that snapped the head of Lopez, who was still fighting at a very reserved pace.

It seemed to be a matter of whether Sparrow would maintain his pace in the fight as while he was landing hard shots, the facial expression of Lopez never changed. Sparrow started the fifth with a solid left hook as he continued to follow up with a variety of shots to the head and body. Sparrow to this point was starting to distance himself as he’d won each round thus far in my eyes. Lopez did a little more in the seventh round but it was Sparrow, the busier fighter, who landed more clean shots with snap as he continued to distance himself from Lopez.

As the fight wore on we started to see more and more of the athletic limitations of Lopez as he maintained a straight, up and down approach. Sparrow continued to put in work in the eighth though Lopez was able to land in spots. Sparrow landed a right that buckled Lopez for a second early in the ninth round. In the 10th and final round Lopez landed a good right hook but continued to follow Sparrow around as he maintained an elusive pace even at this point in the fight.

Lopez landed a hard right later in the round that snapped Sparrow’s head as Sparrow answered back with a combo of his own and landed a hard right at the bell to close the show. When the scores were officially announced, the judges had it 96-94 (twice) and 97-93 in favor of Sparrow who picks up his ninth win via unanimous decision. “I feel great. I showed that I had more experience,” said Sparrow. “I did what I had to do and even hurt him a couple times. We knew the game plan was to take me to deep waters, so we started cautiously and reversed the plan. We took him to deep waters and got the victory.”

The third bout featured Manuel Avila, 23-1, 8 KO’s, took on Diuhl Olguin, 11-9-2, 9 KO’s. There wasn’t much to separate the two in the first round as there weren’t many punches thrown. Avila picked up the action a bit more towards the tail end of round two and landed some nice, clean shots. Avila opened the third with a sturdy jab before landing a hard combination that got Olguin’s attention as Avila started to increase his punch rate. Olguin didn’t back down and continued to push forward landing a solid combo of his own at the end of the fourth. Both saw their moments through the fifth and sixth. Avila landed a solid right hook followed by a right uppercut in the seventh that snapped Olguin’s head back. The eighth and final round saw Avilia have the better moments though Olguin continued to maintain poise and try to match Avila’s pace. Officially, the judges saw it as a unanimous decision victory for Avila 77-75, 78-74 (twice).

“I feel good about this win because I was working on different things,” said Avila. “It threw me off that the opponent was decided at the last moment and that I hurt my left hand. Overall, it was a great learning experience because I chose to work on thing and with a good opponent.”

Bowie, Maryland, cruiserweight Luther Smith, JR., 9-2, 8 KO’s, faced off against Lamont Capers, 8-10-3, 0 KO’s, in the second bout of the evening. Smith, JR., dropped capers in the first round but gassed in the remaining rounds before going to the scorecards. The bout went down as an official split decision win for Lamont Capers with scores of 38-37 twice in his favor while Smith, JR., was given a 38-37 nod by one judge. “I did good,” said Capers. “They saw me as the underdog, but I pushed him and I conquered.”

The first bout of the night was a four round super middleweight fight where Tomas Williams, 0-0-2, 0 KO’s, fought to a draw with Alberto Delgado, 0-2-2, 0 KO’s for a second time in as many fights.

The card closed with Georg Rincon, 3-0, 1 KO’s in a four super lightweight contest against Jihad Wise, 3-4, 1 KO.

Another great night of boxing action as we close out the month of November. The live attendance at the venue was 1768. There are still a great variety of fan friendly matchups in the coming weeks as we look took to close out the calendar year with a bang.

Stay tuned to Ringside Report for all your boxing news.

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