By Jim Dower: Lightweight Mercito Gesta (28-1-1, 16 KOs) won his second fight of his comeback on Friday night in stopping 35-year-old journeyman Luis Arceo (28-13-4, 19 KOs) by a 7th round stoppage at the Longshoremen’s Hall, in San Francisco, California, USA.
The fight was stopped in between the 7th and 8th rounds. Arceo’s face and nose was reddened and he looked pretty well beaten up by the time the plugged was pulled after the 7th.
Gesta did a good job of moving around the ring and throwing combinations. He had to move a lot because Arceo was putting pressure on him constantly, and trying to hurt Gesta with his power shots. Arceo may not have been the best fighter in terms of defense and hand speed, but he did have decent power that bothered Gesta when he would stand still for any length of time.
Gesta looked really improved from the performance he put in for his title shot in 2012 against IBF lightweight champion. In that fight he was stationary and hardly throwing any punches in getting totally dominated by Vazquez in losing a 12 round decision.
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7-foot Chinese heavyweight prospect Taishan Dong (1-0, 1 KOs) defeated Alex Rozman (2-7, 1 KO’s) by a 2nd round TKO. Taishan knocked Rozman down three times in the fight, once in the 1st and twice more in the 2nd before the fight was halted. The heavily muscled Taishan showed decent power, but he looked very slow with his punches, and it’s difficult to picture him being able to beat a good 2nd tier heavyweight.
Right now Taishan doesn’t look capable of beating a fringe contender in the top tier due to how slow he is. He’s going to need to improve on his hand speed if he wants to beat the top tier fighters in the heavyweight division. His reach is only 84” despite him being 7-feet.
In other results on the card:
Emanuel Robles SD 8 Jonathan Chicas
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