Photo Credit: Tom Hogan-HoganPhotos/Golden Boy Promotions) By Jim Dower: Unbeaten welterweight prospect Dmitry Mikhaylenko (20-0, 9 KOs) had an easy time pounding an over-matched 5’11” Johan Perez (20-3-1, 13 KOs) in scoring an 8th round knockout last Saturday night to capture the NABA welterweight title at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California.
The lanky 5’11” rail-thin Perez was hurt in the 8th round from a series of hard shots from the Russian Mikhaylenko. Even before the referee stepped in to halt the fight at 1:21 of the 8th round, it was obvious from Perez’s body language that he wanted the fight stopped.
Perez had backed up against the ropes and looked weary and finished. Perez continued to fight back with slapping shots until the referee Ray Corona did the right thing and stepped in to halt the mismatch.
The 32-year-old Perez couldn’t do anything on the inside all night, which is where the 29-year-old Mikhaylenko mostly kept the action. The 5’9” Mikhaylenko was anything but a huge puncher, but he definitely had better power than Perez, who was moving up from the light welterweight division, and this enabled Mikhaylenko to dominate most of the exchanges in the fight.
Perez didn’t have the movement to keep Mikhaylenko on the outside the way he needed to. When Perez attempted to move around the ring, Mikhaylenko was always there right with him every step of the way to continue to batter him. Perez did a good job of making Mikhaylenko miss with a quite a lot of his punches, but the fact that Mikhaylenko threw so many shots made it impossible for Perez to get out of the way of all the punches Mikhaylenko threw.
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In other action on the card, unbeaten 122lb prospect Manuel Avila (18-0, 8 KOs) stayed undefeated with an impressive 6th round knockout victory over former world title challenger Yoandris “El Nino” Salinas (21-2-2, 14 KOs) in super bantamweight action. Salinas took a lot of punishment in the fight and wound up quitting on his stool in between the 6th and 7th rounds. Salinas complained of a hand injury. Salinas was knocked down by a right hand in the 2nd round. Salinas wasn’t badly hurt, as he was able to get up and catch Avila frequently with hard shots while he attempted to finish him off in the remainder of the round.
Whatever the case, the fight was a mismatch from the 1st round, as Avila was able to nail Salinas frequently with big right hands to the head and left hooks. Even on the outside, Avila was able to snap Salinas’ head back with stiff jabs. On the inside, Avila landed hard body shots and uppercuts to the head. There was simply no escape for Salinas no matter where he was at in the ring.
Salinas fought to a 12 round draw against WBA “regular” super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg in 2013. While some boxing fans believed that Quigg was robbed of a victory in that fight, it was still a fairly close affair. The fact that Avila was able to easily beat Salinas gives one the indication that he could give Quigg a great deal of problems in the future if he ever gets a crack at him.
Avila, 23, is still a prospect at this point in the game, and it’s probably going to take a long time before he gets ranked high enough to get a world title shot. By then, Quigg may have been replaced as WBA champion by someone like Nonito Donaire or Carl Frampton.
Salinas doesn’t look like the same fighter that fought Quigg in 2013. Last year in 2014, Salinas was stopped in the 5th round by Enrique Queveda.
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Lightweight Tevin Farmer (20-4-1, 5 KOs) destroyed Daulis Prescott (30-2, 22 KOs) by an 8th round knockout. Farmer landed a hard left hand to the head that put Prescott on the canvas in the 8th. The referee Ray Corona then stepped in and halted the bout at 0:52 of the round. In the 4th round, Farmer knocked Prescott down with a right hand to the head. However, while Prescott was on the canvas, Farmer hit him with a left hand to the head. Referee Ray Corona then deducted a point from Farmer for the found. The knockdown was ruled as legit by Corona.
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