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06/26/2004 Archived Entry: "Hitz-Hosted Friday Night Fights a Bang Zoom Affair!"
Hitz-Hosted 'Friday Night Fights' a Bang Zoom Affair!
By James Kokosoulis at ringside
(Rosemont, Illinois): The crowd was restless with anticipation as they awaited the fights to begin. They had every reason to be. In addition to being telecast nation-wide on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, this evening had dynamite action in store.
Felix Cora,Jr.
In a scintillating main event, the much anticipated Cruiserweight USBA Title fight lived up to its billing: Felix Cora, Jr. (15-0-2, 7 KO’s) edged Michael Simms (13-1-1, 11 KO’s) in a bruising thriller of a rematch; their previous encounter ended in a draw. Although this fight went the distance, it was very exciting. In fact, a number of people at ringside commented afterwards that it was the most exciting fight on ESPN2 that they’ve ever seen! That’s saying a lot.
Michael Sims
It was back and forth action throughout every round. There wasn’t a dull moment to be had. It was an all-out slugfest. No one went down—which was surprising in light of how much punishment each fighter dished out—but they were constantly beating each other up. In the end, one judge scored the fight a draw, which was in line with what most people felt; two judges had it in favor of Cora by four rounds. As a result, Cora won a majority decision via scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 114-114. In retrospect, some people at ringside felt that it was given to him because he was undefeated.
Welterweights, Terrance “Heat” Cauthen (25-1-0, 7 KO’s) vs. Robert Ortega (17-9-2, 13 KO’s) entertained in a compelling match between contrasting styles—Cauthen the matador to Ortega’s bull—with Cauthen prevailing via a 10 round unanimous decision with scores of 96-94, 97-93 and 98-92.
Terrance Cauthen boxes sharply
In the second round, Ortega caught Cauthen, knocking his mouthpiece into the crowd. This writer retrieved the mouthpiece and handed it off to a ring official before fighting resumed. Ortega was very strong. Cauthen out-boxed him, using movement and boxed around the outside, firing three punch combinations and moving out. Cauthen was very hard to catch. As a result, Ortega got maybe two or three good shots in throughout the fight!
Robert Ortega was one tough customer!
Super middleweights Oscar Bravo (19-2-0) vs. Corey Budd (6-3-0) entertained in a brief blow out. It was total domination by Oscar. Bravo landed big blows throughout the first and second round. In the first round, he knocked Budd down. In the second round, Budd couldn’t get up, so the ref called it. The result was a second round TKO.
Light welterweights John Hoffman (10-13-0, 3 KO’s) and Jermaine “Money” Marks (10-2-2, 8 KO’s) thrilled all with a short but thrilling fight. It was a slugfest for the first several rounds. 
Jermaine Marks hits with a bang!
In the third round, Jermaine landed some clean shots to the face and then clean shots to the body. A clean shot to the body of Hoffman caused the knockdown and TKO in the second half of Round three.
Cruiserweight Chris Riley (1-0-1) pummeled Antonia Colbert (6-30-0, 4 KO’s) for a lopsided four round unanimous decision. In turn, Colbert never did anything to Riley. Chris Riley dominated the fight completely! He wobbled Antonio every round. Riley connected to his face and body an awful lot in every round. Almost every round it seemed he was about to go down, but somehow, some way, he managed to stay upright. 
Chris Riley, shown here in a previous match, gives a good pummeling
In the end, Colbert was beat up pretty badly.
Welterweight Luciano Silva (2-0-0, 2 KO’s) utterly dominated Karl Hunter (0-13), stopping him inside of three rounds. Hunter was knocked down in second round. The coupe de gras was administered in the third round, when it was stopped at 1:28 into the round.
Heavyweight Malachy M. Farrell (2-0-0, 1 KO) proved an old boxing adage that says that size doesn’t mean much, while muscular Adam R. Smith (1-0-0, 1 KO) helped perpetuate another which says lifting weights will make you muscle-bound. This was total domination by Malachy. He was a lot quicker than Smith, who looked like a professional body builder—very muscular—but had no speed at all. Malachy had no muscles to speak of, but was very quick; he connected a lot to face and body. It appeared that Smith did not land one single shot, as he was very slow. Malachy won by unanimous decision with scores of 40-36 all.
Cruiserweight Brian Blakely (13-21-1, 4 KO’s) lost a tough one to Edward Gutierrez (11-0-1, 6 KO’s): Gutierrez dominated all four rounds. There were no knockdowns. Gutierrez landed mostly power-shots to the body in combinations. Make that clean and hard shots to the body. Gutierrez won with scores of 40-36 all for a unanimous decision.
Although the experience was thrilling, at roughly 12:15, maybe12:30 A.M., this writer had his fill of thrills and excitement and left for home. The fights probably went on until 1 A.M. or later.
Felix Cora and Terrance Cauthen photos courtesy of: http://www.banner-promotions.com
Michael Simms photo courtesy of: http://www.kovr13.com/06jun01/vo060601c.htm
Robert Ortega photo courtesy of Edward Zajac
Other photos by Tom Glunz
