By Manuel Perez: Former World Boxing Council (WBC) light flyweight champion Brian Viloria (24-2, 14 KOs) continued moving forward with his comeback, defeating journeyman Benjamin Garcia (13-11-3, 1 KOs) by a 2nd round stoppage on Friday night at the Alameda Swap Meet, in Los Angeles, California. Viloria, 28, hurt Garcia with a left to the head, staggering him in the second. Viloria then followed up with a flurry of shots, putting Garcia down with a left-right combination. Referee Jack Reiss immediately put a stop to the bout at 1:17 of the round.
For Viloria, it was the 4th consecutive victory for him since losing a 12-round majority decision to Edgar Sosa in April 2007. Unfortunately, all of Viloria’s victories have come over lower level opposition, making it hard to tell whether or not Viloria has progressed much since losing to Sosa. From appearances, Viloria looks about the same, maybe a little slower, since that time but it’s hard to tell because of the poor quality of his opposition in his last four fights. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to step it up once again against good fighters, so hopefully he stops wasting time in fighting C-class opposition.
As expected, Viloria dominated the first round on Friday night, hitting a badly over-matched Garcia with a flurry of unanswered punches late in the round. Garcia landed a number of his own shots, which was worrisome because Viloria looked awful slow for a flyweight and nothing like his blinding fast form of 2005 and before. In the second round, after eating a few left hands from Garcia, Viloria went after him with a flurry of shots, backing him up and knocking him down with a left-right combination. The fight was then stopped.
In other action on the card, super featherweight prospect Jose Roman (3-0, 3 KOs) stopped Gabe Garcia (4-5-1, 3 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled six-round bout. Though the fight only lasted one round, it turned out to be of the most exciting fights of the night, as Roman, who was coming into the fight as the favorite, was dropped in the opening minute with a flurry of hard shots from Garcia. Roman, 6’0″ got up off his backside and continued to take punishment from the shorter, 5’6″ Garcia until late in the round when Roman caught Garcia with a perfect left hook, sending him crashing to the canvas. After getting up, Garcia was given a standing eight count. Following that, Roman went after Garcia, hitting him with a flurry of shots, staggering him and causing referee Raul Caiz Jr. to step in and halt the fight at 2:49 of the 1st round.
Undefeated lightweight prospect Carlos Molina (6-0, 3 KOs) defeated Genier Pit (1-1-1, 1 KOs) by a 4th round TKO. The stoppage came about after Molina landed a flurry of shots, backing Pit up to the ropes where referee Jack Reiss stopped the fight at 2:17 of the round. The stoppage, however, seemed premature because Pit seemed unhurt, and appeared to have won all of the three prior rounds quite easily. Pit dominated the first round using his jab and long reach to control the distance over the plodding Molina. In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Pit used 1-2 combinations to outwork Molina, who followed after him, loading up on all his shots. In the 4th round, Pit was controlling the fight until Molina suddenly unleashed a flurry of punches, which drove Pit across the ring where he covered up on the ropes. Referee Jack Weiss suddenly jumped in and stopped the bout as Pit was covering up and waiting for Molina to stop punching. All in all, a bad stoppage.