One-time hot prospect Felix Verdejo, making a concerted effort to reclaim momentum, says he plans to fight again within a few months.
Felix Verdejo knows what idle means. It’s a euphemism, another way of saying you’re going nowhere. Busy is what Verdejo hopes to be. Needs to be.
Verdejo wants another fight within the next few months.
“I would say in March or April or June,’’ Verdejo told El Nuevo Dia, a Puerto Rican newspaper, about his plans after a unanimous decision over Mexican Manuel Rey Rojas on Jan. 18 in Verona, N.Y.
The fight was Verdejo’s first in nine months. For a lightweight with a prospect’s future after the 2016 Olympics, that’s long enough to be forgotten. But the Puerto Rican lightweight is fighting to remind everybody that he’s still around, still trying to fight his way into the 135-pound division’s championship mix.
“Gradually everything will fall into place, step by step,” said Verdejo (26-1, 16 KOs), who plans to resume training in Las Vegas as soon as possible.
The 26-year-old Verdejo is 3-0 since his lone loss, a stunning stoppage to Antonio Torres in March 2017 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. It was a defeat that shook Verdejo’s confidence and left doubt about his future.
“I will continue working,’’ he said. “There are things to improve.’’
He said his 10-round decision over Rojas was average. A C grade, he said. But he felt better about his performance after looking at the video.
‘’I didn’t look as bad as I thought,’’ said Verdejo, who still believes he needed to show more aggressiveness complemented by combinations and lateral movement.
Michael Conlan dominated Vladimir Nikitin in almost every conceivable way to win a 10-round featherweight bout Saturday in New York City.
It’s not an Olympic medal but Michael Conlan will take it.
Three years ago, at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the Irishman was eliminated by Vladimir Nikitin of Russia in the quarterfinals by a decision that didn’t reflect what happened in the ring. The Irishman famously let the judges know how he felt by showing them his middle finger.
This evening, on the Terence Crawford-Egidijus Kavaliauskas card, Conlan got the only redemption available to him.
Conlan dominated Nikitin in almost every conceivable way in a 10-round featherweight bout, outboxing him, outslugging him and ultimately outpointing him by a wide margin in front of his adopted fans at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
This time the scores were spot on: 98-92, 99-91 and 100-90, all for Conlan.
“I always said I had no ill feelings toward Vladimir, nothing personal. I just had to get that one back,” Conlan said in the ring afterward.
Conlan (13-0, 7 KOs) controlled the fight from the opening bell. In the early rounds, he was content to keep his distance from the aggressive Nikitin and outbox him, jabbing, pounding his body with consistency, landing shots to the head and moving when trouble approached.
Then, in the second half of the contest, Conlan decided to fight Nikitin’s fight by standing toe to toe with him at times. However, even then, even though he stepped bravely into a danger zone, he still got the better of the exchanges.
The only thing Conlan couldn’t do was knock out Nikitin (3-1, 0 KOs), although his body work and hard shots to the head late in the fight certainly got his opponent’s attention.
Conlan seemed to enjoy the inside exchanges, which pumped life into what became an entertaining fight, but he said afterward that it probably wasn’t a good idea when he could’ve cruised to victory from the outside.
“You could see, when I wanted to trade, I could do it better than him,” he said, “but this game is about longevity.”
Conlan didn’t want to discuss his future after the fight, saying his immediate goal is to enjoy his Christmas dinner. He did say that he expects to fight for a world title within a year, which is another dream of his.
He can focus 100 percent on that now. The Olympic thing has been settled.
Michael Conlan is best known for being cheated at the 2016 Olympics. Now he has the chance to beat the fighter who had his hand raised.
Michael Conlan, a promising young featherweight, is still known more for what he did than what he is expected to do. Two upraised fingers, one on each upraised hand, were his way of saying goodbye to the amateurs three years ago at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
It was profane. Popular, too.
Conlan expressed what many have thought about Olympic boxing and the lousy decisions that have left a stench ever since the Roy Jones Jr. heist at the 1988 Seoul Games.
Conlan’s gesture said it all then.
He intends to say some more Saturday night.
But this time he promises his only gesture will be a beating of Russian Vladimir Nikitin on the Terence Crawford-Egidijus Kavaliauskas undercard at New York’s Madison Square Garden on ESPN+.
“A demolition job,’’ Conlan said at a media workout Tuesday.
A demolition of the past, perhaps, with what Conlan hopes is a comprehensive beating that will leave little doubt about how bad the judging was in Rio.
“I want to right the wrong of what happened in Rio,” he said.
Ireland’s Michael Conlan (right, punching Mexico’s Ruben Garcia Hernandez) is 12-0 as a pro but hasn’t forgotten his Olympic disappointment. AP Photo / Frank Franklin II
Nikitin, badly bloodied, got a decision that kept Conlan, a 2012 bronze medalist, from moving on to a chance at the gold medal he had always wanted. Nikitin withdrew from his next bout, which would have been against eventual silver-medalist Shakur Stevenson. The Russian Federation said Nikitin suffered unspecified injuries against Conlan. Nikitin wound up with a bronze medal anyway.
Meanwhile, Conlan left Rio without a medal, yet with rock-and-roll-like notoriety. He also gained a reputation for defiance, always a good thing to have in the pro ranks.
He even tweeted to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking him how much it cost to pay off the judges. No word on whether Putin saw the tweet. He might have been too busy reading Donald Trump’s twitter account
Anyway, Conway went home to Belfast beloved. At a corner in his Catholic neighborhood, there’s a mural of him, spread across one wall. He was celebrated for his honesty in Rio. Yet there was always a lingering desire to finish the story. Now he has the chance to deliver the final punctuation point and move on.
“This fight is a long time coming,’’ Conlan (12-0, 7 KOs) said. ‘We were supposed to fight in August, but Vladimir got injured. I’m excited. We’re ready to rock, and the fans in New York can expect a big performance.
“Listen, regardless of what I think about the (amateur) judges, I have never officially beaten him. I need to go out there and get my hand raised.’’
Conlan also said he bears no personal animus for Nikitin, who resides in Oxnard, Calif. At 29, Nikitin, is getting a late start in the pros. He’s 3-0, all by decision and all three in the U.S.
“We fought twice, and I won both times,’’ said Nikitin, who also beat Conlan in 2013. “I know this is the professional game, and I am happy that I have to chance to prove that I am once again the better fighter.”
Alberto Palmetta ended a close fight with a wild flurry in the 10th and final round Friday night in Sloan, Iowa.
Alberto Palmetta evidently didn’t feel it was wise leave his fate in the hands of the judges.
Palmetta and Erik Vega were engaged in a competitive welterweight fight when, in the 10th and final round, Palmetta scored a dramatic technical knockout Friday night in Sloan, Iowa on Showtime.
Palmetta, a 2016 Olympian from Argentina, got off to a quick start and dictated the pace most of the fight. He was the more accurate puncher and seemed to slip many of his Mexican opponent’s best shots.
Vega (16-1, 9 knockouts) came on in the middle rounds, as he stood his ground more than he had been and got busier. The fight was close going into the final rounds.
In the end, Palmetta (13-1, 9 KOs) didn’t know it but he didn’t need a knockout in the 10th to win the fight. He was leading 87-84 on two cards and 86-85 on the third; all he had to do was win the round.
Erik Vega (right) couldn’t withstand an onslaught of punches from Alberto Palmetta in the final round. Greg Mandel / Showtime
However, perhaps the fate of countryman Marcos Escudero in the co-feature entered his mind or that of trainer Charles Mooney, who also worked Escudero’s corner. Escudero seemed to outwork opponent Joe George but lost a split decision.
So when Palmetta stunned Vega to some degree with a short right early in the final round, he followed with unrelenting barrage of largely unanswered punches that forced referee Mark Nelson to stop the fight.
The official time was 1:03 of the round.
With the victory, Palmetta, 29, took a significant step toward becoming a contender. The 24-year-old Vega, a significant prospect going into the fight, will have to work on deficiencies.
In the co-feature, a 10-round light heavyweight bout, Escudero (10-1, 9 KOs) came out firing at the opening bell and never stopped throwing, outlanding George (10-0, 6 KOs) roughly 2-1 in punches. The Argentine routinely forced George against the ropes, where the winner was content to cover up and take punches.
George had his best moments when he had space to work in the middle of the ring but he didn’t have the opportunity often, as Escudero controlled distance for most of the fight. In other words, he imposed his will on George.
That’s why Boxing Junkie scored it 97-93 – seven rounds to three – in Escudero’s favor. The official scores: Two judges scored it for George (97-94 and 97-93), one had it for Escudero (96-94).
Marcos Escudero (right) seemed to do enough to beat Joe George but the judges saw it differently. Greg Mandel / Showtime
Escudero definitely was busier than George. Perhaps the two judges who scored it for the winner gave the loser little credit for the punches he threw when George was against the ropes because they believed he landed mostly on his gloves and arms.
And maybe they thought George landed the bigger shots. He seemed to stun Escudero with a right hand in the ninth round, arguably the biggest punch in the fight, but he couldn’t follow up as Escudero held on until he recovered. When he did, he went back to outworking George.
And, in a scheduled eight-round middleweight fight, Amilcar Vidal Jr. (10-0, 9 KOs) stopped Zach Prieto (9-1, 7 KOs) with one second remaining in the opening round.
Neither fighter had dominated the first few minutes when, in the final seconds, Vidal landed a left hook-upper cut that put Prieto down and hurt him. The product of Las Crucez, New Mexico was able to get up but went down again under a barrage of hard shots, prompting the referee to stop the fight.
