By Jim Dower: #3 WBC lightweight Ivan Redkach (19-1-1, 15 KOs) was held to a disappointing 10 round draw against Luis Cruz (22-4-1, 16 KOs) on Tuesday night on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox Deportes from the Sands Bethlehem Events Center in Bethlehem, Pa.
The 30-year-old Redkach was knocked down in the 2nd round by a big shot from Cruz. However, Redkach came back strong and dropped Cruz in the 8th and 9th rounds to get a draw out of the fight. The judges scored the fight 94-93 for Redkach, 94-93 for Cruz and 94-94.
The scoring was fair for the fight, as it did look like a draw. The positive that came out of the fight for Redkach is he avoided losing again. He was stopped in the 4th round last year by Dejan Zlaticanin in June 2015. The negative that came out of this fight was that Redkach was supposed to win the fight, but he was held to a draw. Cruz had lost two out of his last three fights heading into the contest.
Redkach showed good punching power in putting a lot of pressure on Cruz. There was nothing wrong with Redkach’s punching power. The problem that he was his lack of defense. He kept getting nailed by big shots as he was coming forward. Redkach would have won the fight if he had the ability to get out of the way of punches.
In other action on the card, middleweight Immanuel Aleem (16-0, 9 KOs) beat Jonathan Cepeda (17-2, 15 KOs) by an eight round unanimous decision. The scores were 79-73, 79-73 and 79-73. The fight was more competitive than the scores would have you believe. Cepeda landed some nice shots in the fight, and it was a real war.
Other boxing results on the card:
Frank De Alba TKO 5 Daniel Perales
Kent Cruz UD 6 Jerome Rodriguez
Nicholas Hernandez UD 4 Jamil Gadsden
Dustin Pague UD 4 Rafael Davis
Kyrone Davis UD 8 Junior Castillo