By Eric Thomas: In what some people felt would be an easy victory for previously unbeaten featherweight prospect Juanito Garcia (14-1, 5 KOs) ended up being an easy knockout victory for his opponent 29 year-old Cornelius Lock (17-3-1, 10 KOs), who stopped him in the 4th round on Saturday night at the Expo Center, in the City of Industry, California. Lock, 29, dropped Garcia in the 2nd round with a powerful left to the head, coming out of nowhere with the shot. In the 4th round, Lock finished off Garcia with a left to the body and a right to the head. It was the body shot, though, that did most of the damage as Garcia wasn’t able to get up due to the pain from the shot, which landed to the liver.
In the opening round, it became quickly apparent that Lock was going to be much more than just an opponent for Garcia, as he hit him with hard left hands in the opening moments of the round which seemed to get his attention. Garcia fired back with his own shots and hit Lock with a series of combination but Lock’s punches were doing the more significant damage. Near the end of then round, Lock began to time Garcia as he came and landed some powerful left hooks to the head.
Garcia came out attacking hard at the start of the 2nd round, probably in order to try and get the upper hand due to his poor showing in the previous round. Indeed, Garcia looked good for almost the entire round as he continuously poured in combinations to the head of Lock. However, with only thirty seconds to go in the round, Lock landed a perfect left hook just as Garcia was attempting a punch, knocking him to the canvas. After Garcia got up off the canvas, Lock attacked him and tried to take him out with what little time that there was left in the round. However, Lock was much too eager and missed with two big left hooks that probably would have knocked Garcia out. Instead, Lock had to settle for landing a weak combination that didn’t give him to desired results that he was looking for.
At the start of the 3rd round, the fight had a completely different look and feel to it, for now it was Lock who was the hunter and Garcia the hunted. Lock immediately landed several hard right hands and then a sweeping right hook that staggered Garcia. Lock threw another right hand that caused Garcia to stagger even more. However, Garcia came right back at him, landing several good right hands, one of which almost knocked Lock down as he lost his balance for a brief second after getting hit. I suppose he wasn’t’ ready for the all out attack from Garcia, who had looked like a wounded animal. But, like wounded animals sometimes do, they fight back hard when they’re back is against the wall. The round ended with both fighters trading shots back and forth, neither giving any ground in doing so.
In the fourth round, Lock attacked Garcia with left hands, hitting him over and over, as Garcia had suddenly stopped punching altogether. The two fighters went into a clinch and Garcia finally used that time to begin holding and hitting. After being separated,. Garica landed a good right hand that seemed to anger Lock, who immediately fired back a right-left combination and then a right to the midsection of Garcia, knocking him down in the process. Garcia was badly hurt from the punch and shook his head when the referee stood over him silently as if questioning him if he could continue fighting. The fight was then stopped giving the victory to Lock.