Hometown Showdown - Fightnews Asia

By Brad Snyder-The Undercard
Photos by Bob Ryder

By Fightnews.com

For Promoter Lisa Vondrell and Matchmaker Aaron Rodriguez with Apex Boxing Promotions, the last few months had been a bad adventure. Their Saturday night boxing show was originally scheduled for June 1, 2019. A spillway had overflowed. In it’s wrecking path, was the original venue, Grand Lakeside Pub and Catering. The building had lake water filling up the stairwells with fish floating throughout the venue. What would have deterred most from moving on with the card, they pushed through to continue on with the fights at a new venue, the Junior Fair Building on the Mercer Company Fairgrounds.

But three weeks ago, their main event was canceled due to injury. Then Friday, at the weigh-ins, the state of Ohio disapproved a contestant for being well over the weight limit in his designated weight class. Even with all the turmoil and adversaries they faced, Apex Boxing Promotions was able to persevere and still have a sellout with Celina, Ohio coming out to support.

The main event featured an exciting Super Middleweight hometown guy, Raymond Castaneda (6-0, 2 KOs) vs. a very durable Maurice Anthony (1-1, 1 KO). In the 1st, Castaneda was able to catch Anthony coming in with a left uppercut. Anthony battled his long hair and mouthpiece falling out in the first rounds. Even with his mouthpiece out in the 2nd Round, Anthony slugged with Castaneda. The first three rounds were easy to tell that Castaneda was landing way more combinations with better accuracy. Anthony kept lunging with hooks. “ He was the toughest opponent I had faced. I tried so hard to knock him out that I gassed a little at the end,” Castaneda said. It didn’t matter as all three judges scored the bout the same (40-36, 40-36, 40-36).

Flyweight Carlos Suarez improves to (11-3-1, 6 KOs) with a Split Decision win over Rondarius Hunter (4-5-1, 3 KOs) (58-55-Hunter, 60-53-Suarez, 59-54-Suarez). The scoring by one judge was a little off from the fight that the fans witnessed. Hunter was deducted a point in the 2nd for holding. In fact, Hunter had no answer for Suarez’s attacks in the first four rounds of the 6-round contest. The last two rounds made for a better fight, as Hunter stopped holding and Suarez continued to come forward.

Pro MMA fighter Caleb Fickert got a win (1-0, 1 KO) in his pro boxing debut. His :30 second 4th Round knockout of Justin Parks (0-1) provided the only knockout of the night. Cruiserweight Fickert would tell Ring Announcer Pete Trevino that he is “sticking to MMA and just wanted to show he could use his hands in boxing.”

The first fight of the night had Darnell Achillies Pettis (4-14) dominating an over-matched Junior Rocci (Eddie Hines)(1-1) in a 4-Round lightweight contest. All three judges scored the bout (40-36, 40-36, 40-36) thus proving, records don’t mean anything in this sport and Aaron Rodriguez knows how to make good fights.

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