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Semper Fi: Diaz Stops Jones at Marine Base
MON August 15, ROGER GORDILLO, Ringside - In an effort to show their appreciation and support of our nations troops, the Sycuan Tribe’s Sycuan Ringside Promotions in association with ESPN2 presented a special edition of Tuesday Night Fights. This edition of TNF featured an exciting night of boxing for the soldiers and their families of the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.
Headlining the card was the former IBF Lightweight champion Julio “the Kidd” Diaz (31-3, 23 KOs) against hard hitting Ghanaian fighter Russell Jones (19-11, 14 KOs).
The Coachella based fighter, Diaz, would comment before the match saying that he was not looking for the one punch knockout and how he would like to work on a few things and to demonstrate his boxing ability. Unfortunately, Diaz wouldn’t get a chance to fully display his talents, as the former champ made quick work of his opponent.
Utilizing his hand speed and accurate power punching, Diaz would throw a lunging left hook to the area around the right eye of Russell Jones. Immediately after the punch, Jones would drop to waist level holding Diaz tightly around the waist until referee Raul Caiz Jr. separated the two. As soon as the two were separated, Jones would take a knee to the canvas holding a glove up to his right eye.
As the referee got near the end of the count Jones would get up, before the referee could even ask him if he was ready to continue Jones would immediately go down again. The referee would then continue with the count and stop the bout at one minute and fifty nine seconds of round one, giving Diaz his second consecutive knockout in as many fights.
Diaz would go onto comment after the match that he was ready to step up his level of competition but was having trouble getting opponents to step in the ring with him. He also stated how he would take on all opposition, wanting big names and big fights, including Frietas, Corrales, Juan Diaz and Castillo.
Also featured on the card was fan favorite and king of the four rounders, Eric “Butterbean” Esch against Rick Zufall. There was little action in the first two and a half rounds as Zufall had his track shoes on, avoiding Butterbean as if he owed him money.
Zufall’s unwillingness to engage caused Esch to turn his circus act like fights into even more of a three ring circus as Butterbean began to clown and mock his opponent. At one point Butterbean laid up against the ropes gesturing to his opponent to come get him and he would wait for him at that very spot.
Towards the end of the third round, Butterbean grew weary of waiting on Zufall and as soon as he pressed the action, he would corner Zufall, unloading a barrage of punches quickly putting his opponent on the ground. Zufall would get up only to go down seconds later as he sat on the floor he spat out his mouth piece advising the referee he did not wish to continue, and the bout would end in a third round knockout for Esch.
Mia St. John, who was to be appearing on the card, was rumored to have an injury not allowing her to perform on the card. Taking her place would be two lightweights, as Ricardo Dominguez took on Rafael Ortiz in an eight round event.
The two would go back and forth, but Dominguez, who was the busier of the two, boxed more from the outside and would control the majority of the fight. Ortiz would fight aggressively, and would decide to press the action and catch Dominguez coming in, but managed only to control the fight in spurts.
The fight which was probably the most entertaining bout of the night and was much closer than the scorecards indicated, with the fight ending in a unanimous decision for Dominguez, who is a Culiacan native and chief sparring partner for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. As Dominguez showed good boxing ability, he failed to stay on the outside utilizing his size and reach making the bout much tougher for himself than it needed to be. Dominguez improved to 11-1-6 KOs, as Ortiz fell to 11-8-1, 11 KOs.
The card was the first of its kind for both, the ESPN fight series and the California military facility. With all tickets going to military personnel and their families, the Event was closed to the public, but was televised live nationally on ESPN2. The card was a great success as one group of people’s gift to our troops was a gift all could enjoy.
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