Thompson Boxing’s Last Summer Fight Card in SoCal

ONTARIO- Boxing great James “Lights Out” Toney walked in the ring with his welterweight fighter Patrick Boozer and in the other corner was Ukraine’s Taras Shelestyuk fighting out of the Wild Card Boxing gym on Friday.

In the most exciting and evenly matched fight of the night, Shelestyuk (9-0, 6 Kos) remained undefeated with a split-decision win over Michigan’s Boozer (6-3, 2 Kos) after eight rounds at the Doubletree Hotel. It was a bloody battle between slick, sharp southpaws.

The first person Shelestyuk saw when he jumped in the boxing ring was “Lights Out” Toney so he immediately bounced toward the former multi-world champion to bump fists. Always the gentleman when not donning boxing gloves, Toney was cordial to his fighter’s opponent. But when he has the gloves on he has no friends.

Boozer hails from the same region as Toney and the Mayweathers and of course the late great Emmanuel Steward. So you knew he could fight. When the first bell rang they both emerged in their southpaw stances and began cracking quick, sharp punches.

It became clear that Boozer had the superior speed but Shelestyuk packed the better power. Those differences changed the momentum of the fight early on especially after the Ukrainian was badly cut on the side of his right eye. It was unclear how he was cut but each round it worsened.

In round four Boozer’s right glove tore in the middle and the corner was given time to receive another pair of Everlast.

Boozer’s speed caused Shelestyuk to change attack modes three times but the blood streaming down would not let up. In the 7th looked like he should have stopped the fight in my opinion. All you have to do to understand the reason why is take a look at on the of the TV announcers at the fight-Israel Vazquez, who lost sight in one of his eyes after bloody battles with Rafael Marquez. round the ringside physician took a look at the red face and it

The Ukrainian won the fight when Boozer was deducted a low blow in the 8th and that was that. Neither fighter was close to be knocked down. Two judges scored it 76-75 for Shelestyuk and one judge for Boozer by the same score.

Other winners

Heavyweight LeRon Mitchell survived a first round knockdown to win by technical knockout against Eduardo Ramirez at 1:21 of round two. Ramirez did not seem interested after receiving several vollies.

Jose “Gato” Roman (18-1-1, 12 Kos) defeated Mexico’s veteran Hector Velasquez (56-23-3, 38 Kos) by unanimous decision in a WBC lightweight regional title fight.

L.A.’s Danny Roman (12-2-1, 5 Kos) won every single round against Colombia’s Jonathan Alcantara (7-12-2) in an eight-round super bantamweight clash.

Colombia’s Cesar Villarraga (5-0, 3 Kos) defeated Pomona’s Oscar Santana (4-2-1, 2 Kos) who started fast but was stunned and hurt at the end of round one with a sizzling left hook. After that it was downhill for Santana. In the end of round six, Villarraga ended the fight with an impressive left hook that deflated the body of Santana at 35 seconds into the round for a knockout win.

Erick Ituarte (8-1-1) overcame the speedier punches of Jesus Aguiniga (1-3) when his power in a junior lightweight bout to win by unanimous decision.

Colombia’s Andres Figueroa (5-0, 3 Kos) overcame the constant holding of Arizona’s Carlos Zatarin (3-2-1) to win by unanimous decision.

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