Orleans Crown Boxing Title Night

Layla McCarter Takes Belt Home

By Oliver Smith
 

 

Crown boxing at the Orleans was back at its thrilling best Friday night, putting on some tremendous bouts that had everyone on the edge of their seats.

 

Here's how the action unfolded:

 

The Main Event in the nights action was Layla McCarter (31-13-5 ) Vs Loli ‘Sugar’ Munoz (8-5-1) fighting for the GBU Lightweight Championship. ‘Amazing’ Layla was not at her best and could not get into her stride as Munoz managed to keep her at bay for most of the fight. Munoz awkward style made it difficult for McCarter to get inside of her. Nevertheless, McCarter scored a 10 round decision that angered Munoz’s corner who was already upset that the rounds were three minutes instead of the usual two. Speaking to McCarter after the fight, she told me she was really disappointed with the way she fought and thought that she should have easily dispatched of Munoz. Everyone has a bad day Layla, but when you have a bad day and you still win, that’s the sign of a true champ.

 

The fight of the evening was Roger Mayweather trained Patrick Liles (7-0-1) taking on Leo Bercier (5-6-2) in this cruiserweight match up. Liles started strongly and looked as though he would take his record to 8-0 but it soon became apparent that this wasn’t going to be an easy fight. Every time Liles backed Bercier into a corner or onto the ropes, Bercier would wait for his moment and pick his shots perfectly, a few of which completely stunned Liles. The fight turned out to be something that the directors of the Rocky movies would have been proud of as both fighters pummeled each other until they had nothing left. The fight went the distance and the judges correctly scored the fight a draw. There will surely be a rematch of this fight and its one that I will be looking out for.

 

Orleans favorite Johnny ‘The Cobra’ Taunton ( 6-1-1 ) took on Rodrigo Aranda ( 8-7-2 ) in a six round fight. Having seen Taunton on numerous occasions I was expecting him to take his record to 7-0-1, but it wasn’t to be as Aranda overpowered the man from Anchorage, Alaska and took a unaminous decision over six rounds.

 

Middleweights Rodrigo Aguiar ( 5-3-0)Vs Simon Ruvalcaba (4-10-2) were the next up and it was the hard working Aguiar who won by a unaminous decision over 4 rounds. Aguiars constant pressure being the deciding factor in this one.

 

Here’s where things got really interesting if not a little bemusing*. Heavyweight Eric Bozan ( 1-0-0 ) made his pro debut to take on Charles Presnell ( 0-2-0). In Presnell’s prior fight he was KO’d inside the opening 45 seconds, being knocked down no more than three times in that round.

 

So, could he improve on that?

 

Nope.

 

In fact, Bozan scored a TKO over Presnell after just 22 seconds as referee Joe Cortez stopped the fight before Presnell got seriously hurt.  In all honestly this was embarrassing. Presnell looked like he had put on some boxing gloves and stepped into the ring for the first time, he was that bad. He didn’t even look like he could defend himself properly as he just held his hands up against his head and let Bozan use him as a punching bag. Completely bemusing as there must surely be a lot more capable boxers out there who would relish the opportunity to fight at such a big event as The Orleans. Just a thought.

 

Raul Duhart (1-0-0)Vs Jerry Granados (0-1-0)were both making their professional debuts. Duhart scored an impressive KO inside 40 seconds of the second round

 

If you are ever in Las Vegas and are looking for something to keep your ticker going, then look no further than the Crown boxing events. They are usually held every month and the fight schedules and tickets can be found at Crown boxings website.

 

* bemuse : to cause to have feelings of wry or tolerant amusement