The ESPN Friday night tour visited the mile high city of Denver, for a peek at its latest find Donald Camarena, who entertained the hometown fans and officials with a unanimous decision win over novice Jorge Alberto Padilla.

The card was spirited one - closely matched pairings from prelim to main event - but nothing remotely special in the talent department.

Joey Tess and Atlas did the company thing in support of the favored Camarena -  Tessitore with repetitive overused "prospect" shouting, and Teddy the trainer turned shill, clouding the performance with comments of how the kid has passed the test against a tough and aggressive opponent.

Goes as far as praising the hot-dog routine as charismatic, when Donald prospect voluntarily backs to the ropes, dons the "ear muffs" with the light punching Padilla flailing away, to engage Atlas in conversation.

Camarena needed a strong 8-9-10 candles to ensure the victory over a tiring Padilla who had never before been beyond 8 stanzas - official scoring went Camarena 98-92, 98-92, 96-94 - my unofficial saw it all square at 95-95 in points with both claiming five rounds apiece.

For the rest of the story: The facts ma’am; Camarena ( 16-1, 9 KO) young at age 23, good size at 5’ 11" and helps in working from port side. Negative is lack of punching power, and unlike most southpaws is easy puzzle to solve when on defense. Best description I have is he appears more a watered down version of a Paul Spadafora than a budding Pernell Whitaker.
                                           Jorge Alberto Padilla ( 6-2, 1 KO) ~ The game and aggressive in style 26 year-old, in only his ninth pro fight , showed mucho heart but little else. Was brought in to pad the record of Camarena. Clearly a prelim in talent entity at this writing.   

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Semi-final jr. welter action between Rogelio Castaneda (20-10-3, 6 KO) and Hernan Galaviz ( 2-5, 1 KO)  was aborted during round six due to nasty cut over right eye of Galaviz.

The "inadvertent" meeting of the minds resulted in a going to the scorecards, with the unanimous win for Castaneda in like scores of 60-54. This unofficial saw it Castaneda 59-55 in points and 5-1 using round by round method.

Post Scripts: Both Castaneda at a now 20-10-3, 6KO’s and Galaviz at 2-5, 1 KO pretty much sums things up.

GEL  

Questions? Comments? Email George Elsasser