It wasn’t always easy, but in the end former US Olympian Sadam Ali successfully made his return to televised boxing following his knockout loss against Jessie Vargas last March. Johan Perez put on a good effort as his opposition, but ultimately it wasn’t enough. Alejandro Barrera scored an upset win over Eddie Gomez in the co-feature as well.
The tone of the main event was set pretty early on. Sadam Ali (25-1, 14 KOs) was content to counter, which was fine with Johan Perez (22-4-2, 15 KOs). The Venezuelan b-side in Perez wanted to come forward and exchange. Though he let Perez initiate, Ali’s responses just carried more rounds than Perez’s aggression. Johan Perez fought well, just not well enough to win enough rounds.
Ali scored a third round flash knockdown, though Perez was not hurt. The middle rounds were marred by repeated headbutts that opened cuts on both fighters, but the former Olympian never stopped looking for his big counter while Perez continued to be aggressive in spite of everything. Johan’s best chance to win the fight came late in the eighth when he hurt the former Olympian with a great body shot. Ali survived, however, and returned to boxing well over the last two rounds to win on relatively wide cards.
In the co-feature, Mexico’s Alejandro Barrera (29-3, 18 KOs) scored by far the biggest win of his career over Golden Boy’s Eddie Gomez (20-3, 11 KOs). He had to withstand a late, fight narrowing rally to do so as well. In the first half, the Nacho Beristain trained fighter used distance and activity behind his jab to largely reduce Gomez to a few counters here and then. Barrera chose to fight more in the last few rounds though, nearly getting himself knocked out in the seventh along the way. It was too little, too late for Gomez, however, but only nearly so. A split decision was the verdict.
