By Sam Gregory: The main event of the July 24th edition of ESPN2 Friday Night Fights live from El Paso, Texas features southpaw Cornelius Lock 18-3-1 with 11 KO’s who takes on hometown favorite Antonio Escalante 20-2 with 13 KO’s in a scheduled 10 round fight in the featherweight division.
This is Lock’s first ring appearance since he scored a 10th round stoppage over Roger “Speedy” Gonzalez on ESPN2 Friday Night Fights just over a year ago. His opponent tonight, 23 year old Antonio Escalante was devastating in his last three fights stopping all three of his opponents in three rounds.
At the opening bell both men came out throwing hard strong punches, Lock using his jab and Escalante went right to the body throwing hard uppercuts. Lock tried to be the aggressor early on but relying on his jab wasn’t enough to hold Escalante at bay as the hometown favorite was willing to walk through a barrage of punches to pursue his body attack.
After the second round a cut had developed over the left eye of Escalante which at first was thought to be from a punch but after looking at a reply looked to be from an unintentional clash of heads.
In the third round Escalante went to work early with his body attack never letting up until a hard uppercut sent Lock to the canvas mid-way through the round. Lock was able to beat the count but before the bell ended the round he was dropped to the canvas again giving Escalante a 10-7 round.
Escalante continued to apply pressure through the third and fourth round walking through punches that didn’t seem to bother him at all. Lock was a game fighter but Escalante was too strong and continued to dictate the offensive flow of the fight.
In round five both men were going toe to toe but Escalante was clearly the stronger man and out muscled Lock even when the southpaw tried to clinch.
This fight was non-stop action but on the unofficial score card Escalante had an overwhelming lead at the mid-way point of the fight.
By the seventh round Lock was starting to slow down especially with his output of punches. Escalante continued to dominate and didn’t let up with his body attack that was wearing his opponent down.
By the eighth round Escalante had won ever round but one, with the 10-7 third round Escalante had a comfortable lead going into the final two rounds.
In the ninth round Lock slowed considerably but Escalante stepped up the pressure; Lock wasn’t able to land anything meaningful and looked completely spent.
In the tenth and final round Lock absorbed a lot of body shots. The referee kept a close eye on the southpaw as it looked like he could have stopped the fight at any time. Lock’s punches had nothing on them but he did manage to survive the round. In the last 30 seconds of the round Lock ate some big punches. After the final bell the fight went to the judge’s score cards.
Escalante won a clean sweep on two cards 100-88 and 98-90 on the third card.
Hometown favorite Antonio Escalante improved his record to 21-2 with 13 KO’s; Cornelius Lock fell to 18-4-1 with 11 KO’s.
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