By Manuel Perez: Super bantamweight Antonio Escalante (19-2, 12 KOs) was too much for Mike Oliver (21-2, 7 KOs), knocking him down four times in total and stopping him in the 3rd round of a scheduled 10-round bout on Friday at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in Cabazon, California. Escalante, 23, appeared way too powerful and big for the weaker, slightly smaller 28 year-old Oliver, who just appeared too small for Escalante from the opening moments of the fight. Oliver, a fighter with over 300 amateur fights, looked smooth in the first round and landed well with hooks to the head.
However, Escalante followed him around the ring, hitting him with huge left hooks to the body and head. Near the end of the fight round, Escalante hurt Oliver with a big left-right to the head, dropping him to the canvas. He got up but was immediately sent back down against with a left uppercut. Again, Oliver got up and was hit with a powerful right hand to the body, and staggered with a right to the head. Escalante then dropped him for the third time in the round with a left tot eh head. The round ended just in time for Oliver, who clearly would have been knocked out had it gone any longer.
In the second round, Oliver looked to have recovered well, landing some good shots. However, Escalante stunned him with a left uppercut in the last minute of the round, and punished him with big body shots until the round ended. In the 3rd round, Oliver landed a left-right combination, but Escalnte responded with a left-right to the body that sent Oliver down. Oliver got up, but appeared to be in pain, prompting for the referee David Mendoza to stop the bout at 0:33 of the 3rd.
In hindsight, Oliver appeared to have made a mistake in choosing a fighter as tough as Escalante, considering that Oliver had been stopped in the 3rd round by Reynaldo Lopez in May. Oliver probably would have been better served in taking an easy fight after losing by knockout in his previous bout.
In other action on the card, unbeaten light welterweight Hector Sanchez (16-0, 7 KOs) took apart Albert Rodriguez (8-1-1, 4 KOs), stopping him in the 2nd round. Sanchez, 22, from Puerto Rico, used his huge 6’2” size advantage and long reach to spear the smaller 5’6” Rodriguez with punches, ultimately knocking him down with an avalanche of punches while he was trapped in the corner in the second round. Referee David Mendoza moved in and halted the fight at 1:43 of the second round.
Rodriguez, 24, never had a chance in the fight, for Sanchez fought mostly on the outside, using his tremendous reach advantage to keep Rodriguez bottled up and unable to land anything significant. It’s quite unusual for light welterweights to be as tall as the 6’2” Sanchez, and what made it even worse for Rodriguez is that he has fought most of his fights as a super featherweight, where the normal height of his opponents are usually 5’6” and not anywhere close to six-feet tall like Sanchez.
Nevertheless, Rodriguez gamely fought hard in the first round, walking through a hornet’s nest of punches to finally land a couple of good combinations at the end of the round. Unfortunately for Rodriguez, that was the extent of what he could offer up in the fight, because in the next round, Sanchez went after him with hard combinations from the start of the round, and trapped Rodriguez in the corner where he dropped him with a flurry of shots. Rodriguez was far too hurt to continue fighting and the fight was stopped by referee David Mendoza.
Welterweight prospect Saul Alvarez (22-0, 15 KOS) defeated former amateur star Larry Mosley (15-3-2, 6 KOs) in a 10-round unanimous decision. The final judges’ scores were 99-91, 97-93 and 96-94. Alvarez, only 18, showed hints that he may someday be a good fighter, but he still has a lot of work to day before then, starting with his flat-footed stance and his lack of head movement.
Alvarez looked for the most part like robot as he plodded after Mosley for most of the fight. He had little in the way of power, and his punches often seemed to come up short, as if he was punching at Mosley rather than through him. The first round had little action at except for a few jabs from each fighter.
Mostly, they just stood and looked at each other, giving a lot of fakes. Mosley did the better punching in rounds two and three, even though Alvarez landed more often. The problem was, Alvarez’s punches were very weak, lacking any snap on them whatsoever. He looked powerful, but when he would punch his power shots looked no better than jabs. Alvarez got the better of the action in rounds four through six, but was still far from impressive.
He finally threw a few meaningful punches in the 6th, when he erupted with a brief flurry after getting hit with a few good shots from Mosley. In the 7th round, Alvarez did absolutely nothing, appearing to be taking the count off. Indeed, he hung on the ropes and took shots from Mosley, and then would try to come after him to pay him back. It didn’t work out well for Alvarez in the round, and he lost it on my card.
In rounds eight and nine, Alvarez once again outworked Mosley, landing the more frequent punches but looking very average at best. Mosley came back in the 10th round, fighting hard and landing some good combinations. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t fight that was in the remainder of the rounds, because he would have easily have beaten Alvarez if he had.