Another Golden Boy on ESPN is in the books, this one co-promoted by Murphys Boxing. In the main event, Mark DeLuca picked up a stoppage win over his late booked opponent. Two very prominent Golden Boy prospects in Jason Quigley and Yamaguchi Falcao also got victories on the undercard, Quigley by stoppage.
Unbeaten 30 year old Murphys Boxing’s welterweight Mark DeLuca (21-0, 13 KOs) picked up a seventh round stoppage in his biggest career exposure opportunity on ESPN2. He also put on a pretty nice performance. Even though he was in pretty soft here against Ramses Agaton (20-8-3, 10 KOs), DeLuca’s ceiling appeared a little higher in the sport than I previously thought. At least it did early in this fight as DeLuca features a pretty sharp offensive game and is defensively responsible in there with a high guard. He did become sloppy with fatigue later in the fight, however. Agaton was dropped in the second and for some reason was deducted two points in the fourth for… uh, getting hit with a low blow? That was one of the more confusing calls by a ref in recent boxing history, but points wouldn’t matter as he was stopped in the seventh on an accumulation of body shots and fatigue. Agaton got up, but his body language had been poor for the whole round and I liked the stoppage.
Important Golden Boy prospect Jason Quigley (14-0, 11 KOs) returned from a year long layoff to stop Daniel Rosario (11-4, 10 KOs) in six rounds in the show’s co-main event. Returning from hand surgery, the Irish middleweight did look a little rough around the edges defensively, but he still had an easy time. He scored what should have been called a knockdown in the second round and found his power consistently able to bother Rosario in the fight. The finish came in the sixth on a brutal left hook to the body. Rosario showed a lot of heart to get up and fight for another minute or so, but another left hook to the same spot had him writhing in pain face first on the canvas before he could get out of the round.
Despite his extensive amateur pedigree, Quigley is a bit too open and raw in there to be considered a blue chip sure thing despite being a good prospect. What he definitely represents, however, is an important promotional opportunity for Golden Boy. While De La Hoya and company are a major league promoter, they are also strangely regional in Southern California. To promote a show in the Northeast without using a major national star, they need to bring in someone else like Murphys Boxing to provide a regional draw in the main event. Jason Quigley could represent a change in that status quo as a Golden Boy Irish attraction in the greater Boston area.
Yamaguchi Falcao (15-0, 6 KOs) cruised to an easy eight round decision in the show’s opener over Colombian journeyman Richard Gutierrez (30-18-2, 19 KOs). The bogus official knockdown Gutierrez scored in the first round was a result of Falcao’s foot being stepped on. Conversely, Falcao’s knockdown in the fifth was legitimate and pretty funny. He did a classic Ali shuffle which caused his opponent to drop his hands in frustration, so Falcao tossed out a quick one two which was just enough to put Gutierrez down. Often I get down on prospects for not having a nice knockout record early in their career simply because it is hard for those guys to get the respect of top fighters in the ring as the level of competition steps up, but I see Falcao as an exception. He is a nice, natural athlete whose power passes the eye test even if it doesn’t show up on the official record.
