Prospect watch - 6/1/2012 - Review

Not a great week for the prospects I featured, with two of the three losing their unbeaten records.


New York light middleweight Steve Martinez was in a tough fight and lost a split decision over eight against Dennis Douglin. I watched this fight on FNF and it was a really good bout, and was very close. Martinez for me was a bit too one dimensional and was loading up far too often early on, but I'm not going to ignore the kid, I think he's still got lots of potential and is just 21 years old.

Figueroa impressed in his war v Perez

On ShoBox Michael Perez suffered a very disappointing loss against fellow unbeaten fighter Omar Figueroa, with his corner retiring him in the 6th round. It was a good fight, and Figueroa was able to stamp his authority on the contest, with his bullish display very impressive.


The only winner of the weekend was 1-0 middleweight, Chris Pearson, who secured a four round points win over Cleven Ishe, all three judges scoring it 39-37. It's never bad to go the distance early on in your career, and although a stoppage win would have looked more impressive, it will be a big help to the Cleveland fighter.


It was a quiet weekend of action, but last night (Saturday) there was a card in Holywood, Florida, and in the co feature there was an impressive performance from Dominican fighter Claudio Marrero. The 22 year old unbeaten southpaw, moved to 10-0 (9 KO's) by stopping fellow countryman Francis Ruiz in two, and taking the vacant WBC FECARBOX featherweight title. It took highly touted fighter Randy Caballero six rounds to take him out in May, and the way Marrero did it was a real positive. He's not beaten much, but this was a good step up in class against a 9-5 fighter, who's known for being a tricky guy to come up against.

Ramos showed the battle scars after 10 hard rounds

Headlining the ShoBox card on Friday night was Luis Ramos Jr v Raymundo Beltran for the vacant NABA USA lightweight title, and the 23 year old Ramos came through well to claim a 10 round UD, judges scoring it 97-93 x2 and 96-94. It was always going to be a tough fight for Ramos, and it didnt start off well with the Santa Ana native getting cut early on. Midway he started to get hold of the right and boxed well, being 23 I think he's still learning and has clearly got sound boxing ability.


Figueroa is certainly a fighter to keep an eye on after that performance and is the third addition to my boxrec watchlist from this weekend.


Next week looks like a pretty quiet one at the moment, for me Vegas is where it will be happening on Friday night, one of the scheduled fighters being the younger Magdaleno brother, Jesse. Check back next week for another prospect watch.