Featured fighters earn wins on Solo Boxeo Tecate show

     In the eight-round main event, Ramos (16-0, eight knockouts), a 22-year-old junior welterweight from Santa Ana, Calif., who signed with Golden Boy Promotions two years ago, prevailed over Joshua Allotey (16-10, 14 KOs), a native of Ghana who fights out of New York City. Ramos won via unanimous decision (80-72, 80-72, 79-73), thanks to an effective combination of body punches and blows to the face. Ramos repeatedly put Allotey against the ropes and the African fighter's face began to look swollen in the fifth round. 

    "Allotey was a tough opponent and I knew he was going to come out and give me everything he had," Ramos said. "I came out and did everything 100 percent the way I wanted to. Six weeks of hard work training for this fight paid off and I got the victory. I was happy with my performance tonight.

    "Texas has been very nice to me, the people are friendly and I'd love to come back and fight here again," he added. 

     Ramos was coming off a second-round technical knockout victory against Allen Litzau on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Shane Mosley show on May 1 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

   Figueroa (10-0, eight KOs), a 20-year-old Rio Grande Valley favorite from Weslaco who signed with Golden Boy last September, made his national TV debut during the scheduled six-round co-main event against Julian Rodriguez (18-19-4, 12 KOs) of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Figueroa, a lightweight, gave his many fans on hand plenty to cheer about, even though his ring appearance was a brief one.

    After numerous low blows for which Rodriguez was cautioned and eventually had a point deducted twice, the Mexican fighter was disqualified at the 1:15 mark of the second round for continuing to throw those illegal punches.

    "It seemed like every punch he threw after his first 10 punches was a low blow," Figueroa said. "His first punch in the second round hit me straight there (in the groin) and that one really hurt.

   "I don't really feel that satisfied winning this way, but there's not much I could do about it," he added. "It's better that they stopped it, I guess, than me getting hurt or something like that. I felt confident and I felt like I was dominating the fight and I had him already. It makes me feel a little bit mad about the way it went."  

    Also Friday, Eric "Drummer Boy" Molina (14-1, 11 KOs) of Lyford successfully defended his WBC Latino cruiserweight title against Chris Thomas (17-12-2, 14 KOs) of Chicago on a TKO at the 48-second mark of the fourth round. Just like Figueroa, Molina had a large group of fans to cheer him to victory.

   So far, the summer is going pretty well for Molina as he graduated from the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College last month with a special education degree and he gained an impressive victory defending his championship this weekend.

    "I trained harder than I've ever trained in my life for this fight," Molina said. "I put everything into finishing school and I graduated, then I worked so hard for this fight. I've had so much on my plate, and I don't know how I do it, but hard work and dedication pays off, and it showed right here tonight.

    "Like I said, I don't know how I do it, but somehow, someway, I get it done, and I just have to thank everyone that is behind me," he added. "We're (ranked) No. 14 in the world (now), and from here, we're going on up." 

    Earlier in the evening, welterweight Jermell Charlo (12-0, six KOs) of Houston, another Golden Boy prospect, dispatched Adan Murillo (6-3, one KO) of Matamoros at the 1:03 mark of the opening round on a TKO.

    Following the Charlo bout, junior bantamweight Juan Manuel Lopez (7-4, five KOs) of Weslaco stopped Richard Flores (3-10, one KO) of Mission on a TKO at the 1:46 mark of the first round. The Lopez-Flores bout was a rematch as Lopez won on a third-round TKO when the two previously fought on May 5, 2006, at Altas Palmas Park in Donna.  

      The evening's opening fights saw former WBA super bantamweight champion Nestor Garza (41-5, 33 KOs) of Reynosa, now a welterweight, suffer a six-round unanimous decision loss (59-54, 59-54, 58-55) to Steve Almaraz (10-3, four KOs) of Harlingen, while junior middleweight Yvette McCullar (3-0, two KOs) of Killeen prevailed over Maria Rodriguez (2-3) of Brownsville on a four-round unanimous decision (40-36, 40-36, 40-36).

   

   Roy Hess writes for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him via e-mail at rhess@brownsvilleherald.com.