By Jim Dower: Super featherweight prospect Marvin Quintero (15-1, 12 KOs) defeated Nick Casal (18-4-1, 14 KOs) in a 3rd round stoppage on Friday night at the Million Dollar Elm Casino, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Casal, 23, after losing both the 2nd and 3rd rounds, couldn’t continue and asked that the fight be stopped just moments after the 3rd round ended, saying ” That’s it. My legs aren’t here today.”
The fight was then officially stopped by referee Mike England at 3:00 of the 3rd round. For Casal, a fringe contender who was thought to be potentially good enough to be a top contender someday, it had to have been a crushing defeat. He had looked good in many of his other bouts but for some reason he didn’t have it all together last night and wasn’t really there after the 1st round.
Casal fought well in the opening round, landing well with two and three punch combinations repeatedly in the round. However, his defense was horrid, leaving him open for a lot of big shots from Quintero to leak in. Quintero looked equally terrible on defense, little better than an amateur fighter with little experience.
He was hit often by Casal in the round and seemed totally unconcerned with the numerous head shots that he was absorbing in the round. Quintero, the taller fighter, let Casal get close and land big shots in the round. At close range, Quintero was a much less effective fighter than he was at long range.
Yet he did little about making any kind of real adjustments in the round to prevent Casal from getting inside on him.
In the 2nd round, Quintero, who had looked just awful in the 1st, suddenly started beating the living daylights out of Casal, nailing him with hard right hands and left hooks to the head without having much return fire thrown back his way.
Quintero’s punches began to have big effects on Casal, snapping his head back and causing his face to swell up. Casal seemed to have big problems with Quintero’s busy work rate, as well as his quicker hands. Quintero wasn’t allowing Casal to fight at a slower, more deliberate pace that he’d previously been accustomed to in his other fights.
Quintero’s constant pressure seemed to have the effect of draining all the energy out of Casal, leaving him with little power to fight back in the round. Again and again, Quintero trapped Casal and forced to him to fight, getting the better of him with fast combinations to the head. Quintero seemed uninterested in throwing any body shots whatsoever, focusing mainly on landing to the head.
In the 3rd round, the fight began to get really out of hand for Casal, as Quintero began to pelt him one after another with big shots and make him look like little more than a punching dummy. It was an ugly round, as Quintero didn’t let up with the pace of his shots for a moment in the round, and hit Casal with a ton of big power shots to the head.
In the last half of the round, Quintero repeatedly nailed Casal with big uppercuts, at one point hitting him with six consecutive shots as Casal lay against the ropes. After the round ended, a dejected looking Casal told his trainer, “That’s it. My legs aren’t here today.” The referee was then signaled and the fight stopped, giving Quintero the win.