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Camacho Stops Gingras To
Capture Light Heavyweight Title
What was billed as the Fight of the Year in the northeast
way before the first bell rang lived up to the billing
Friday night as undefeated Angel Camacho Jr. stopped Rich
Gingras in the eighth round of their main event bout at Twin
River Casino to capture the New England and Universal Boxing
Federation (UBF) International Light Heavyweight Titles.
The win extended Camacho’s unbeaten record to 15-0 with 6
KOs while Gingras – fighting for the first time in a year –
dropped to 15-5-1. It was no doubt the biggest win of
Camacho’s career, chopping down the gritty Gingras at the 1
minute, 57 second mark of the eighth round and ending a
back-and-forth, see-saw battle worthy of all the pre-fight
hype and accolades.
The scheduled 10-round main event was the headliner of CES
Boxing’s “Mayhem” card. Using his height and reach to his
advantage, Providence’s Camacho got off to a fast start,
out-boxing Gingras and effectively circling his opponent to
score early and often.
Once he solved the distance factor, Gingras, hailing from
nearby Lincoln, began to close the gap and pound away at
Camacho’s body, fighting back in the middle rounds to pull
closer on the scorecards.
The tide turned when Gingras suffered a nasty cut over the
left eye, which impaired his vision. He tried to fight
through it – twice, in fact, with the ringside physician’s
blessing – but Camacho began to take advantage in the
seventh before closing it out in the eighth with a series of
combinations that forced referee Joey Lupino to stop the
fight.
Aside from the thrill of the highly anticipated main event,
the night belonged to Worcester, Mass., junior middleweight
Khiary Gray (9-0, 6 KOs), who his extended his first-round
knockout streak and won his most impressive fight to date,
stopping Texan Kenton Sippio-Cook (6-3) at the 2:02 mark of
round No. 1 to capture the vacant UBF Northeast Title.
Gray came out swinging, landing early and often against the
overwhelmed Sippio-Cook, who eventually hit the canvas
courtesy of an overhand right and never made it back to his
feet. Gray has now won each of his last six fights – all
this year – by first-round knockout, an impressive streak
that began in January when he stopped Jake Constant with a
body shot at 1:20 mark.
Looking to carry the momentum from his big, come-from-behind
win over Juan Rodriguez in July, Nick DeLomba (8-1) returned
Friday to face fellow undefeated welterweight Gledwin Ortiz
(3-0, 3 KOs) from the Bronx. The tall, rangy Ortiz pulled
off the upset on the road, stopping DeLomba and handing the
Cranston, R.I., native his first career loss via knockout at
the 2:43 mark of the opening round.
Unlike his last fight, when he got up off the canvas and
rebounded to win by knockout, DeLomba failed to survive an
early knockdown Friday. With wobbly legs, DeLomba tried to
gain his composure, but the relentless Ortiz continued to
unload and finished DeLomba with a flurry of rights and
lefts in the corner, forcing Lupino to stop the bout.
In an early candidate for Fight of the Night, Massachusetts
junior welterweights Travis Demko (4-0) of Stoughton and
Mohamed Allam (1-1) staged a back-and-forth, four-round war
with Demko narrowly winning on all three scorecards, 39-37.
Demko’s footwork and ability to stick and move kept Allam at
bay, but Allam finally found his rhythm in the later rounds,
cutting off the ring and temporarily slowing the pace of the
fight. Demko’s work in the early rounds turned out to be the
difference as he earned the win in his CES debut.
Worcester, Mass., junior welterweight Freddy Sanchez (6-0, 5
KOs) made quick of work of Boston’s Rafael Francis (0-6),
stopping Francis at the 1:55 mark of the second round.
Sanchez and Francis fought a year ago in Francis’
professional debut with Sanchez winning narrowly by a
majority decision. This time, Francis didn’t have enough in
the tank after agreeing to take the fight on 48 hours’
notice when Sanchez’s original opponent, Lazar Stojadinovic,
withdrew due to illness Tuesday.
Also making his Twin River debut, New London heavyweight
Cassius Chaney (4-0, 3 KOs) cruised past Maryland’s Alando
Pugh (1-6-1), who was forced to quit due to a left shoulder
injury at the 1:21 mark of the opening round.
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