Antonio Tarver – Johnathon Banks Fightcard Recap
By Dave Wilcox (At ringside)
The Pechanga Resort and Casino in Temecula, California played host to Goossen Promotions for a special Thursday night addition of ESPN Friday Night Fights.
The “Night of Champions” card was a thirteen bout marathon that featured four former World Champions in separate bouts.
The former Light Heavyweight Champion and Roy Jones, JR. and Rocky Balboa slayer, Antonio “Magic Man” Tarver had a heavyweight bout with Emanuel Steward training protégée, Johnathon Banks in scheduled ten round affair.
Banks, wearing the Kronk Gym gold trunks made so famous by Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns in the 80’s started very slow, throwing few punches. Luckily for him, Tarver didn’t do any better. The saving grace early for Tarver was his straight left hand from the southpaw stance started to find a home on the chin of Banks. From the second round on, the left hand was all Tarver could muster as he would use it almost exclusively the rest of the way.
The snooze fest went on until the seventh round when “The Magic Man’s” left found a home three straight times and dropped Banks to the canvas. Banks made the count, but the end was near.
Tarver swarmed Banks with a barrage of punches and the referee mercifully stopped it at 2:25 of round seven.
Antonio Tarver improves to 31-6, 22 KO’s. Johnathon Banks drops to 29-3-1, 19 KO’s.
In what was billed as the “Main Event”, but was the second to last fight shown on TV, another former World Champion, Austin “No Doubt” Trout took on Luis Grajeda in a scheduled ten round Junior Middleweight affair.
Trout outclassed his opponent throughout the fight and put Grajeda down with a body shot in the fifth round. In rounds six and seven, Trout really worked the body well and started to dominate. In between the seventh and eighth round, the bout was stopped in Grajeda’s corner and Trout was declared the winner by KO. Austin Trout jumped to 28-2, 15 KO’s. Luis Grajeda falls to 17-4-2, 13 KO’s.
In what would turn out to be the most controversial fight of the evening, the WBA interim Super Bantamweight was on the line. (Yeah, I don’t know why that title exists either)
Undefeated Oscar Escandon of Columbia squared off against Tyson “Prince of Hali” Cave of Nova Scotia, Canada. Cave boxed, moved and punched his way through what appeared to be an easy unanimous decision from the perspective of RSR.
Although Cave’s style of clowning and pity-pat punching is not crowd pleasing, it would turn out to be quite effective against the favored Escandon.
Escandon barely landed any punches as RSR saw it from their front row ringside seat. It was painful to score every round but two for the irritating style of Cave, but the eyes don’t lie and he appeared to dominate.
Funny thing happened on the way to Cave’s Interim title victory, two of three judges scored it for Escandon by the scores of 117-111 and 115-113. The third judge had it 115-113 for Cave.
Personally I was shocked by the decision and apparently I wasn’t the only one.
Being ringside, I don’t get to hear the ESPN commentary, but my phone immediately blew up with texts about Teddy’s rant on the air about his dislike for the decision.
“Cave was robbed, I had him winning by I think 118-110. I only gave two rounds to the other kid” Atlas said as we walked out together from the arena.
Oscar Escandon moves his record to 23-0, 15 KO’s and Tyson Cave mark falls to 22-3, 6 KO’s.
Other former World Champion results:
Rico “Sauvecito” Ramos had no trouble Juan Ruiz and won an easy eight round decision in this Featherweight affair. All three judges scored the bout 79-73.
Sergio Mora was on the bill, taking on Dashon Johnson in a scheduled eight round Middleweight fight. In a surprisingly exciting bout, which is not usually the case with Mora, the two exchanged shots for eight full rounds and Mora was awarded the unanimous decision.
Undercard:
Heavyweight Dominic Breazeale made quick work of Epifanio Mendoza, scoring two first round knockdowns. The referee stopped the bout of 2:35 of round one.
Middleweight Terrell Gausha looked very good as he got the knockout over Cesar Villa with a crushing four punch combination. Referee Jack Reiss called a halt to the action at 2:40 of round eight.
Fighting at light heavyweight now, Edwin “La Bomba” Rodriguez looked huge compared to his diminutive opponent and trial horse, Derrick Findlay. It was no contest as “La Bomba” scored two knockdowns in the first round and the Doctor wouldn’t let Findlay come out of his corner for the start of round two.
Rounding out the card:
Ahmed Elbali KO3 Lawrence Blakey – Light Heavyweights
Gerald Washington KO1 Mike Sheppard-Heavyweights
Malcom McAllister KO2 Fernado Najera-Super Middleweight
Marcus Brown KO1 George Blades-Light Heavyweights
Vatche Martirosyan UD4 Eddie Diaz-Welterweights
Keep Punching….
