Nguyen no match for Del Valle plus other fights of local interest
Saturday, June 11, 2011, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City, Luis Del Valle (r) lands a hard right on the side of Dat Nguyen's head. Photo: Tom Casino/Showtime
On Saturday evening from the Roseland Ballroom in New York City on the second consecutive night of fights on Showtime’s ShoBox, featherweight Luis Del Valle completely dominated Dat Nguyen to win by scores of 99-91 on all three scorecards.
Nguyen fought locally at the Pala Casino on August 22, 2009 against Noe Lopez Jr. Many of us at ringside believe Lopez Jr won that bout. Not to draw comparisons, but, prior to Saturday’s contest, Del Valle had beaten Lopez Jr. twice and quite handily. The very tough Lopez Jr. lost to Charles Huerta and Huerta lost to Chris Martin. Sometimes it’s all about connecting the dots.
Del Valle (13-0,10 KOs), of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, impressed the judges with his sharp jab and well-timed counters. His opponent, Nguyen (17-2, 6 KOs), a resident of Vero Beach, Fla., came out swinging but Del Valle had no problem slowing him down, slipping the wide punches and inserting his own crisp counters. The two exchanged punches over and over with Del Valle gaining the upper hand nearly every time.
With the fight card being Co-promoted by Lou DiBella Entertainment and Gary Shaw Productions, you knew one or both of these gents would add an interesting quote.
When answering a question regarding what’s next for the 126-pound Del Valle, DiBella said: “He’s going to go down to 122 (super bantamweight), whether he wants to or not. He’s already got power now. At 122, forget it.”
In the Co-feature, Jonathan Gonzalez (l) is shown delivering a hard punch to the head of Richard Gutierrez (r) in their 10-round junior middleweight bout at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Photo: Tom Casino/Showtime
In the co-feature, Jonathan Gonzalez scored a convincing 10-round unanimous decision in a junior middleweight bout with Richard Gutierrez with scores of 99-91 and 98-92 twice. What made this opening bout so memorable was the way it began. Even before the first bell sounded, the boxers were shouting insults at each other from across the ring.
After it began, you had Gonzalez unloading his big power shots and Gutierrez returning fire with hard counters. The brawl continued round after round with the fighters being warned repeatedly about low blows, rabbit punches and the clashing of heads.
The telecast will replay Thursday, June 16 at 10:30 p.m. PT on Showtime.
Also on Saturday, 35 year-old Omar Andes Narvaez (34-0-2) from Cordoba, Argentina successfully defended his super flyweight title for a third time when he beat William Urina (17-1-0). Narvaez was originally scheduled to meet Juan Carlos Sanchez Jr. who pulled out of the fight.
An Olympian in 1996 and 2000, Narvaez is the first 2000 Olympian to capture a world title. For Urina, it was only his second bout outside his native Colombia and in his previous bout, he lost by unanimous decision to Johnny Garcia in Mexico.
