Ortiz’s Upset Ended a Long Night in Philly, and Much Longer Wait for the Met

As the featured attractions of the evening were preparing to enter the ring and make history of sorts,  ring announcer Mark Fratto enthusiastically reminded the sellout crowd of 3,400-plus that what was about to happen was “the first main event here in 65 years!”

Put in that perspective, what had already been a long day’s journey into night, or more accurately a long night’s journey toward very early the next morning, didn’t seem that long at all. True, the first bout of a very full pugilistic dance card – 10 fights in all, with another canceled because of an unspecified “medical condition” involving one of the would-be participants – began right on time at 7 p.m., but over 4½ hours had elapsed when the scorecards for lightweight Steven Ortiz’s unanimous, eight-round decision over fellow Philadelphian Jeremy Cuevas were read by Fratto. Figure on a show that would have lasted five hours had that 11^th fight taken place, or if three fights that did happen not ended in the first round, with two more only making it to round two.

But here’s the thing: boxing at the exquisitely refurbished The Met Philadelphia, which had not been the site of a boxing event since 1954, was back in the fight game, and back with a high enough entertainment quotient that few if any spectators left early because of fatigue, boredom or short attention spans.

“We’re just blessed,” Manny Rivera, president of Hard Hitting Promotions, said of the first of what he plans to be six fight cards at The Met in 2019, the next scheduled for April 26. “We had a turnout of about 3,350, maybe 3,400 (capacity for boxing had been pegged at be 3,200). I knew it could happen, but it is humbling to know that we have the support that we have. The people got their money’s worth that was more important to me than anything. We said we’re here to put on good, competitive fights, and we delivered.”

But Rivera – who snagged the coveted boxing tie-in with Live Nation Philadelphia, the concert promotional company that controls other usage dates at The Met, the erstwhile Metropolitan Opera House which over the past 18 months underwent a $56 million transformation to the historic building’s former opulence – didn’t have the total level of the satisfaction he might have had, the large audience notwithstanding. Two of Hard Hitting’s more important assets, Cuevas and super lightweight Samuel Teah, each lost his bout for a vacant Pennsylvania State championship. Then again, Rivera can justifiably note that he didn’t shortchange the paying customers by feeding a couple of his headliners no-hope opponents, as so often is the case with cards more geared toward padding the records of the favored few.

Cuevas, now 11-1 with eight victories inside the distance, might have preferred a softer touch than he got in Ortiz (10-0, 3 KOs), who floored him in the second and seventh rounds of the scheduled eight-rounder en route to a surprisingly wide margin of victory on the scorecards submitted by James Kenney (79-71) and Dewey LaRosa and Ron McNair (each 78-72).

Although Cuevas declined to be interviewed, his disappointment at being tagged with his first professional defeat elicited a familiar reaction from previously undefeated fighters whose initial reaction is that their dreams have come crashing down, never to be resurrected. “He was, like, `It’s all over, it’s all over,’” said his mom. Cuevas’ cornermen were a bit more pragmatic, vowing that their guy’s somewhat surprising comeuppance from Ortiz would simply serve as a learning experience, a useful building block on the way back to bigger and better things.

An exuberant Ortiz, on the other hand, thought he had just laid such a building block. He had helped prepare for Cuevas, a highly mobile southpaw with decent pop, in part through sparring sessions with Luis Collazo, the 37-year-old former welterweight champion and still a pretty slick lefthander at this advanced stage of his career.

“I’m excited. I’m glad I made history,” Ortiz, from North Philly, said of the distinction of being the first winning main-event fighter in the long-delayed return of boxing to The Met. “I got a win over a great fighter, and the crowd was a sellout. This is amazing, man. I’m impressed with myself.”

Ortiz’s 33.3 percent knockout rate coming in suggested a lack of punching power, but he didn’t just floor Cuevas with a left hook in the closing seconds of round two, he shook him, badly. That shot either had the effect of taking some of the spring out of Cuevas’ legs, or convincing him that he needed to stand and trade more to make up for lost ground. Either way, it didn’t work as he again went to the canvas after getting nailed by an overhand right in round seven.

“The power was there,” Ortiz said. “We’re definitely going to start getting more guys out of there. It comes with experience, with discipline, with staying focused. We’re going to keep getting better, we’re going to keep getting stronger, we’re going to keep getting smarter.”

The Ortiz-Cuevas fight was good stuff, and it had to be, given that the preceding bout – an eight-round unanimous decision for Baltimore welterweight Malik Hawkins (14-0, 9 KOs) over Gledwin Ortiz (6-3, 5 KOs) – was main-event worthy. No knockdowns were registered, but Hawkins’ heavier hands made the difference the active and very game Ortiz (no relation to Steven Ortiz), whose bleached blond hairstyle would make him the winner of a Jarrett Hurd (he’s the IBF/WBA super welterweight champion) lookalike contest, if there were such a thing. Scores were 79-73, 79-74 and 77-75, all for Hawkins.

Teah (15-3-1, 7 KOs), from Northeast Philly by way of his native Liberia, couldn’t come close to solving the southpaw stylings of Tre’Sean Wiggins (11-4-1, 6 KOs) in an eight-rounder for the vacant Pennsylvania State super lightweight title. That almost was to be expected, Teach having lost an eight-round majority decision to another lefthander, Montana Love, on Feb. 2, 2018.

“Typically Sammy has problems with southpaws,” said Rivera, who thus might not have done Teah any favors by making this particular bout. “But Sammy has fights he needs to take, and win. Tonight he couldn’t pull it off, but he’ll be back.”

Some found it curious that Wiggins, who was introduced as being from Newburgh, N.Y., was fighting for a Pennsylvania state championship. Rivera, however, said it was a legit pairing, that Wiggins was only born in Newburgh and that he now resides in Johnstown, Pa.

The most emphatic ending of the night was registered by super lightweight Brandon Pizarro (14-1, 7 KOs), a 19-year-old up-and-comer who put Zack Ramsey (8-6, 4 KOs), of Springfield, Mass., down twice in the opening round, the first time on a left hook to the body, the second, for the full count, on a left uppercut.

Super featherweight Gadwin Rosa (10-0, 8 KOs), of Ocala, Fla., remained undefeated with a second-round stoppage of Jorge Luis Santos (5-3-1, 2 KOs), of Mexico.  Also extending an unblemished record was another super featherweight, Puerto Rico’s Christian Tapia (8-0, 7 KOs), who also required just two rounds to put away David Veras Pena (0-2-1) on a second-round TKO.

In other bouts, bantamweight Emanuel Rodriguez (4-0), of Newark, N.J., took a four-round unanimous decision over Jose Lopez (0-1-1), Bronx, N.Y.; light heavyweight Benjamin Sinakin (3-0, 2 KOs), South Philly, bombed out fellow Philly guy Ronald Lawrence (0-4) in one round; Josue Rosa (1-0, 1 KO), Philly, turned pro with what goes into the books as a first-round stoppage when Willie Anderson (0-2), Paulsboro, N.J., did not come out for the second round, citing injury, and bantamweights Tamar Israeli (2-0-1, 2 KOs) and Karen Dullin (3-16-1, 1 KOs), North Kingstown, R.I., fought to a four-round majority draw in a women’s matchup.

Bernard Fernandez is the retired boxing writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. He is a five-term former president of the Boxing Writers Association of America, an inductee into the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame and the recipient of the Nat Fleischer Award for Excellence in Boxing Journalism and the Barney Nagler Award for Long and Meritorious Service to Boxing.

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