The Palms in Las Vegas, NV hosted “Road
To Redemption” Friday night featuring Zab Judah and Joel
Casamayor in separate bouts.
Zab Judah headlined the card in his
first fight in nearly a year. Zab jumped right on Ubaldo
Hernandez as soon as the opening bell rung. A jab to the
body caught Hernandez off balance and sent him to the
canvas. Being more off balance than hurt, Hernandez easily
beat the ten count and fought on to finish the round.
“Super” Judah closed the show in the second round when a
barrage of punches again sent Hernandez down, and this
time referee Joe Cortez called a halt to the match. It
showed in the replay that one of the punches was low.
After the bout Hernandez, sat on the stool as hold his arm
as if it was injured during the fight. Zab Judah improves
his record to 38-6 (26 KOs). After the bout Judah called
out both Juan Urango and Andre Berto.
Joel Casamayor's "Road To Redemption"
didn't go off as smoothly as Judah's. The 38 year old
former champion looked very sluggish in the early rounds
against Jason Davis. Casamayor's punches were slow and off
the mark. Joel had his hands full with the very game Davis
through the first half of the fight. Going into the 6th round Casamayor's ring rust must have started to loosen
up, as
he finally found his groove and started to land punches with more consistency. When the final bell rang I
had the fight scored for the former champion by two points
but the judges saw it a little different, all with the
scores of 79-73. Joel Casamayor is now 37-4-1 (22 KOs).
It should also be noted that Casamayor came in at an all
time high 146 lbs. at the scales. I’m not sure
if it was a severe case of ring rust, or simply age, but
Joel looked like a shot fighter for much of the fight.
Light heavyweights Ron Johnson 11-1 (3
KOs) and Dumont Welliver 18-19-1 (6 KOs) fought only two
rounds after a head butt caused two very nasty cuts over
Welliver's left eye, one on the eyelid and one below the
eye.
Salvador Sanchez Jr. out worked late
sub Jose Pacheco over six rounds. The bout was very one
sided, with Sanchez working Pacheco up and down to win an
easy unanimous decision. Sanchez is now 17-3-2 (8 KO’s).
