East L.A.’s Frankie Gomez KOs Jason Davis In 25 Seconds…AVILA

photo by Al Applerose

LOS ANGELES-Junior welterweight prospect Frankie Gomez saw a junior middleweight standing in front of him and chopped him down with two blows before a stunned crowd at Club Nokia on Thursday night.

The East Los Angeles prizefighter showed off his new tools with a vicious display of accuracy in knocking out Jason Davis (11-9-1), who out-weighed Gomez by nine pounds.
And he did it in front of newly crowned WBC welterweight champ Victor Ortiz.

Gomez (9-0, 7 KOs) is now being trained by Abel Sanchez with help from Ben Lira. If you know your boxing history you’ll recognize that tandem as the trainers who guided Terry Norris to the world title in the 1990s. The former world champion was in the audience.

“We went through six weeks of training in Big Bear for just a 25-second fight,” said Sanchez, who owns a training facility in Big Bear. “But that’s OK, we’ll take it anytime.”

Unable to secure an opponent for Gomez, they looked for somebody a little larger and found Davis. But with only a week’s notice it was too much weight to lose at the scales to Gomez’s team agreed to make the fight.

They knew what they were doing.

At the sound of the opening bell Davis delivered a hay-maker from Hell, but Gomez nimbly slipped that blow and another before setting up his own left and right combination. The right hand found its mark and down went Davis for the count of 10.

“I hit him on the temple and down he went,” said Gomez somberly.

It was Gomez' first training camp with new trainer Sanchez and the 19-year-old seemed to relish the new teachings.

“I like learning new things,” said Gomez.

One more thing he learned is that he will be dropping down from the junior welterweight class to the 135-pound lightweight division.

“He’s walking around at 142 pounds,” said Sanchez. “It will be easy for him to fight at lightweight.”

Look for Gomez to look like Victor Ortiz in the lightweight division.

Other bouts

Ernesto Ocon (3-0, 2 KOs) knocked out Miguel Pizzaro (1-2) by stunning the Puerto Rican fighter with a left hand to the head, then a half dozen well-placed body shots that folded Pizarro into a heap at 58 seconds of the third round of a welterweight bout.

Venezuela’s Alfonso Blanco (5-0, 2 KOs) punished Santa Ana’s Juan Carlos Diaz (7-13, 6 KOs) in a four-round junior middleweight bout. Two knockdowns in the first two rounds seemed to point toward an early night for Diaz, but he got stronger as the fight proceeded and Blanco got tired. Still, Blanco did most of the work and won by unanimous decision after four rounds. The Venezuelan is trained by Robert Garcia.

East L.A.’s Ramon Valadez (8-1, 4 KOs) went six rough rounds with Dominican Rafael Lora (11-5, 5 KOs) and emerged with a victory. All three judges scored it 59-55 for junior lightweight Valadez, who is Frankie Gomez’s stable mate.

New Mexico’s Fidel Maldonado (10-0, 9 KOs) forced the referee to stop the fight with Puerto Rico’s Jorge Cordero (4-7, 4 KOs) at 2:03 of the first round of a lightweight bout.

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