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America Presents / Fox Sports - Sunday, February 18, 2001 - Far West Rodeo - El Paso, TX text and photos by chris cozzone Next best thing to a fight in Juarez is a fight just on the other side of the border in El Paso. You won't find the charm of Juarez, or match the fight cards there, but you'll still get a fair share of Juarez fighters. If only the Juarez fighters could get their fair share . . . . Seems like the last four or five fights I've seen with Juarez fighters on this side of the border got screwed out of wins (remember Quirino Garcia vs. David Reid?) A couple weeks ago in Acoma, NM, Rodrigo Facio fought Andres Fernandez to a draw when it should've been Facio's win; and last night in El Paso, the same thing happened in the main event.
Nope. Only one judge (Rocky Burke) had it right: 67-65. The other two had it dead even, which made it a technical draw. Of course, the crowd was pissed off and they booed for a good five minutes. To my utter disappointment, no one threw beer or started a riot. (Then again, this was El Paso, not Juarez . . . although the fights were held at a Country & Western bar - the Far West Rodeo, and there were a fair amount of cowboys there. In fact, my pal Louie (Burke, a top lightweight from the '80s) was jumped by a couple guys. He managed to drop both of 'em with relative ease.) This guy "Ferrus" Contreras (pretty sure that rhymes but my Spanish ain't the best; hell, neither's my English) is ready to go: let's pit this "bad little dog" (that's what "Ferrus" means) against another top ten contender and then throw Willie Jorrin in against him. This fight oughtta move him up a notch or three in the WBC ratings . . . . (Currently he's #14 in the jr. featherweights.)
You could take or leave the co-main event, Carlos Navarro vs. Ubaldo Hernandez. Except for the knockout, the fight was somewhat dull. Hernandez is a durable dude but he was no match for Navarro, who took his time and then matter-of-factly took Hernandez out in the 7th.
Joey
Ruelas vs. Bobby Joe Valdez was a short fight, but one of
the best of the night. This was El Paso's Bobby Joe's third
fight but he certainly ain't even trying to pad his
record. His last two fights have been against tough boxers:
Vernon Payne from NM, and last night, '98 Junior Olympics
champ Joey Ruelas. Valdez went at Ruelas and was actually
winning the
The other El Pasoan on the card, Adan Hernandez had better luck. His fight was with tough-ass Juan Mendez from Juarez. I've seen Mendez fight about four times now and he may be a dirty fighter, but he's solid, mean and fun to watch. I've also seen Adan several times. He's no knockout artist but he's a good boxer and he's always willing to go toe-to-toe. The judges scored this fight an easy shutout for Hernandez (with a point off for Mendez for dirty tactics) but I had Mendez winning two of the rounds with his harder punches and aggression. Hernandez is still undefeated at 5-0. (Yo Jorge & Adan: How 'bout a rematch with Jaime Silva?) The best punch of the night had to be from Juarez fighter Julian "Bebe" Rodriguez (9-3-1, 5 KO's) when he KO'd Alex Romero (record unknown) in the 4th. Unfortunately, I had used up the last few frames in my camera at hand taking shots of the ring girl sticking out her butt to show us all a butterfly tattoo . . . O well. Sometimes you just have to take that chance . . . . # # #
MAIN EVENT -
10-ROUND JR FEATHERWEIGHT: CO-MAIN EVENT -
10-ROUND JR. LIGHTWEIGHT: UNDERCARD # # # |
"FERRUS"
CONTRERAS DOGS SANCHEZ ... BUT ENDS UP WITH TECHNICAL DRAW!
Carlos
Contreras (17-4-2) fought aggressive and fought hard. Hell,
he was beating the crap out of Enrique Sanchez (28-1-2) when
they boinked heads and Sanchez started bleeding. The doc
checked it out and let'm go at it again; Carlos started
whupping Enrique again and then they clashed noggins again.
This time, the fight was stopped and the judges went to the
scorecards. Sanchez, looking every inch a beaten man, went
back to his corner while Contreras pranced about the ring,
his arms in raised in the victory he thought he'd earned.
Contreras
wasn't the only promising fighter on the card.
fight before Ruelas decided it was time to start
fighting near the end of the 2nd Round. He started banging
on Valdez, whose aggressive style leaves wide open gaps in
his defense, closing his eye by the time the bell rang. It
didn't take the ref long to stop the fight in Round 3:
Ruelas went in for the kill and before Valdez could even
attempt to tie Ruelas up, the ref had stopped the fight.