Fast Results from Philly AND Texas: Jason Sosa and Vergil Ortiz Win Big

Competing ESPN+ and DAZN cards in Philadelphia and Grand Prairie, Texas, were loaded with local products. Jason Sosa, who resides five miles across the bridge from Philadelphia in Camden, New Jersey, was the star attraction in Philly. Hometown hero Vergil Ortiz Jr. anchored the show in Grand Prairie, a Dallas suburb.

Liacouras Center

Jason Sosa’s bout with Haskell Lydell Rhodes, scheduled for 10 rounds at 130 pounds, was bumped into the main event when Carl Frampton suffered broken bones in his right hand in a freak accident at his hotel. And in an unexpectedly one-sided affair, Sosa (pictured) turned in his best performance since stopping WBA 130-pound champ Javier Fortuna in Beijing in one of the biggest upsets of 2016.

Sosa 23-3-4 (16 KOs) dropped Rhodes (27-4-1) twice in the fifth stanza. Rhodes, an Oklahoma native who resides in Las Vegas, was lucky to survive the round but never made it out of the seventh after Sosa dropped him for a third time.

Sosa’s impressive showing was overshadowed by a huge upset on the undercard.

In a shocker that is still hard to fathom, Cuban defector Robeisy Ramirez, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, started his pro career 0-1 after suffering a loss by split decision to Denver’s Adan Gonzales (5-2-2).

Gonzales scored a flash (but clean) knockdown in the opening round of the 4-round featherweight contest and it was uphill for Ramirez from there. There was a wide divergence in the scores with the Denver man winning by tallies of 40-35 and 39-36 and the third judge favoring the Cuban 38-37. But there was no controversy. Gonzales wasn’t fazed by Ramirez’s build-up (he was hyped as the next Lomachenko) and was the rightful winner.

You will be reading a lot more about middleweight Edgar Berlanga. Born and raised in New York City, of Puerto Rican extraction, the 22-year-old Berlanga has knocked out all 12 of his professional opponents in the opening round. The latest victim was Frenchman Gregory Trenel whose first U.S. engagement was over and done in 144 seconds. Berlanga simply overwhelmed Trenel (11-5-2) who hadn’t previously been stopped.

Sonny Conto, Philadelphia’s highly-touted heavyweight prospect, knocked down Mexico’s squatty Guillermo Del Rio (2-3-1) in the fourth and final round en route to winning a unanimous decision. The scores wer40-35 across the board. It was a physical and athletic mismatch, but Del Rio was stubborn and lasted the distance against Conto who had won his three previous pro fights by stoppage.

Grand Prairie, Texas

The 12-round welterweight contest between Vergil Ortiz Jr and Antonio Orozco was even through the first five rounds. But in the sixth, Ortiz took care of business and when the smoke cleared the 21-year-old Texan had scored his 14^th knockout in as many starts.

Ortiz scored the first of three sixth-round knockdowns with a right uppercut. When he dropped him for the third time, the referee waved it off. Orozco (28-2) hadn’t previously been stopped. In his lone prior defeat, he went the full 12 with WBC 140-pound champion Jose Carlos Ramirez who has since added the WBO belt to his war chest.

Semi-Main

The degree of separation between Joshua Franco (15-1-2) and Oscar Negrete (18-2-2) is miniscule. Tonight, the scrappy bantamweights, both of whom train in Southern California, locked horns for the third time in 10 months and in common with the first meeting, the outcome was a draw (96-94, 94-96, 95-95). Franco won the second meeting by split decision, but tonight’s rubber match proved only that Negrete is Franco’s equal and vice versa. Although not the barnburner of the first meeting, where both were credited with throwing over 1000 punches, this was another good action fight.

The Franco-Negrete match was preceded by a dull 10-round featherweight contest between San Antonio’s Hector Tanajara (18-0, 5 KOs) and Mexico’s Ezequiel Aviles (16-4-3). Tanajara, who turned pro in 2016, spurning an invite to the Olympic trials, won all 10 rounds on all three cards.

In an entertaining 6-round slugfest between undefeated junior featherweights, Dallas’ Hector Valdez improved to 11-0 with a unanimous decision over LA’s Rafael Delgado (6-1). Valdez won by score of 59-54 and 58-55 twice. Delgado, who is only 19 years old, had fought his first five pro fights in Tijuana, winning all by knockout.

The undefeated Rincon brothers, George and Alex, scored matching second round knockouts. The brothers, both southpaws, hail from the Dallas suburb of Carollton.

George Rincon, 27, a junior welterweight, made short work of 35-year-old Enrique Escobar, dismissing Argentine import in the second round. A five-time Texas Golden Gloves champion, Rincon (8-0, 5 KOs) knocked Escobar to the canvas in the opening round with a body shot and had him on the deck twice more in the second frame before the referee called it off. The official time was 2:13. It was the fourth straight loss for the well-traveled Escobar (17-7).

Later in the show, younger brother Alex, 24, a super welterweight, improved to 7-0 (6 KOs) with a second- round stoppage of Joel Guevara (4-6-1). Guevara, from Charleston, West Virginia, has lost six of his last seven.

Also, Golden Boy’s newest signee, light heavyweight Tristan Kalkreuth, a 17-year-old high school junior from Duncanville, Texas, made a smashing pro debut with a 42-second blowout of Kansas City’s Kynndale Prather (0-2).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams for Top Rank

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