WPCNR RINGSIDE. By KO Johnny. February 11, 2006: Max Cuevos won The Battle of the Bronx Friday evening in the Main Event as boxing came to the Mulcahy Center at Iona in New Rochelle. Max threw a right hook with everything on it and caught Allen Conyers with all he had flush in the jaw dropping him in the corner in Round 3 to win the New York State Junior Middleweight Title. It was a stunning finale to a mix-it-up, shake-it-up, crowd-pleasing card from Ring Promotions, before 1100 at Mulcahy (900 paid). Ann Marie Saccurato of White Plains and Maureen Shea, Iona slugger and Hillary Swank's sparring partner, won rousing matches to the delight of their fans.
Max Cuevos Holds off Allen Conyers ready to rock him with a right hook from below, in his comeback in Third Round. Photo, WPCNR Sports.
Cuevos Right Hook Came Up out of the floor and decked Conyers for the title. Photo, WPCNR Sports.
Toughest Woman in White Plains, Ann Marie Saccurato (left) Punishing Vickie Cisneros of New Mexico with combos inside. Sockin' Saccurato won a unanimous decision for Win Number 11 against 1 loss. Photo, WPCNR Sports
The Big Shea, Maureen Shea, Iona Senior in Iona yellow and maroon set to pound Sarina Hayden of Colorado with wound-up right. Photo, WPCNR Sports.
Ann Marie Saccurato, White Plains' toughest woman took a unanimous decision from Vickie Cisneros of Alburquerque in a rousing rematch, coming on strong in the middle rounds and eighth round to clinch the fight. The judges had Ann Marie going away, (79-73, 78-74,80-78)but Cisneros kept coming at the White Plains scrappy "Energizer Bunny" and yours truly scored it a lot closer.
Ann Marie's noticeably improved conditioning, relentless aggressiveness, and flashing speed won this fight, though finishing with a puffy face. Cisneros, slimmer, tougher, really improved against Ann Marie this time, simply did not have the speed to reach Ann Marie and connect with all she had. Saccurato's speedy combos punished Vickie inside big time with her rat-a-tat body work and left right slugging to the head in close and personal.
Saccurato lost her first fight last summer running out of gas and getting outpointed against a superior boxer. She had plenty left in the tank tonight, as she avoided the relentless Cisneros' valient attempts to land a hard shot to overturn defeat in the closing round.
The Big Shea Shakes It Up
Maureen Shea, Iona College graduate, was relentless, focused, controlled in scoring a third round knockout of a game, but slow sluggerrette, Sarina Hayden (0-2-1) of Colorado Springs.
"Mo" bloodied Hayden's nose in the first round with a long powerhouse right flush on, and her left-right combinations thrown slow with a kick on the end of them. She finished her punches, carried the fight and was popping with brutal long straight-arms.
Hayden kept coming at Shea despite the bloody nose that lasted for a round and a half, but when the snoz opened up again in Round 3, on a Maureenmaker left to the face in the corner, the referee stopped the fight. The Big Shea moves to 4-0 with her third KO.
Up off the floor for a Title.
In the Main Event Championship, two superior boxers with put-em-down power hooked up in a 3-round rouser. Allen Conyers came out strong against Max Cuevas, who started slowly, in a battle of the Bronx Bombers.
Conyers came in low with hard straight shots to Cuevas in Round One, to the body and then midway through cuffed him with a Yankee Clipper right, staggering Max just a little. Conyers followed up, hurt him again with another right.
Round Two started the same way, Conyers attacking with confidence, having Cuevas on the defensive, landing another right, hurting Max. Then Cuevas who had been punching mainly with his right, changed up and started throwing left crosses that disconcerted Conyers. With about 30 seconds to go in Round Two, Cuevas connected with a right hook that stunned Conyers for seconds and he was hurt.
Conyers was a little uncertain in Round Three but picked up the fight, tried to come in aggessively low to Cuevas body. It was a mistake.
On one of his downlow attempts to get in on Cuevas, right in front of yours truly, Max threw a right hook from up and under as Conyers, crouched low came in on him, Conyers head snapped back absorbing the rocket shot on the point of his jaw and sprawled to the canvas with a THUD, his body convulsing.
The referee counted him out, and Cuevas started leaping into the air with joy.
Cuevas had come back after being hurt and taken his opponent out of it. (Really out of it.) Cuevas hit Conyers with so much, when Allen got to his feet he was staggering around the ring. Cuevas moves to 7-2-1 with 3 KOs. Conyers, 8-2. My ringside companion who has seen a lot of fights, Peter Wood, a teacher at White Plains High School who writes for the sweetscience.com, noted it was a great comeback for Cuevas.
It was a great end to an evening of interesting, entertaining fights between the young and the restless and the hopeful. The hope was abundant tonight.
I love what boxing does for the young persons in this sport. They work at a craft, develop heart, courage, poise and character, and they love it. The Saccurato-Cisneros fight was such a contest, the two women embraced after the decision.
The Prelims
In early bouts, Jamal McKay of Brooklyn, notched win 5 against 9 defeats and 1 draw defeating Andy Hutchinson of Port St. Lucie, Florida with a strong hammering inside game of speed and body punishment that Hutchinson could not handle. Hutchinson did not mount any aggressiveness and seemed befuddled by the interior tatooing he was getting.
The Judges gave McKay a split decision, 59-55, 59-55 and 57-57. McKay consistently put Hutch into the ropes where Hutchinson clinched. This fight had more clinches than a porn movie, through no fault of Mr. McKay's. Peter Wood remarked that McKay, being small compact and speedy with solid body, was reminiscent of the Turn of the Century boxer, Sam Langford, "The Boston Tarbaby" who fought the same way, in low with upper body shots.
The Sugar Man from New Orleans
The fighter I want to see again (besides Maureen Shea and Sockin Saccurato is Deon "The Wanderer" Nash of New Orleans with matinee looks who took on an aggressive hard punching, dervish of a puncher in Eduardo Torres of Naguabo, Puerto Rico.
"The Wanderer" parried Eduardo's punches for a minute and a half with great peek-a-boo dee boxing. Then out of the ropes, he caught Torres with 3 lightning precision power left crosses clippingTorres three times to an early doom.
Though Torres did not go down and tried gamely to windmill punch his way back into it, Mr. Nash was too quick, too cool, to let him recover.
Torres came out for Round Two, tried to mix it up with Mr. Nash again and the same thing happened, a left Torres never saw landed on Eduardo's right jaw and Torres back to the far ropes and Nash was on him for the kill. Torres was trapped on the far ropes with Mr. Nash going to town on him and the Referee stopped the contest.
Mr. Nash moves to 4-1, with his first KO. Nash has style, superb poise, and was the speediest fighter I saw tonight. He looked like a thin Sugar Ray Robinson. What a puncher! Though this was a short fight, it was a good one. Mr. Torres has great heart and speed, but is over aggressive cost him big time against the deft Mr. Nash. Torres has to realize that the aggressiveness has to not leave himself unprotected. Nash killed him with 4 quick, hard, wakeup calls to his totally unprotected face.
The Boo of the Night
The Boo of the Night rained down on the "Draw From Nowhere" decision (reminiscent of some figure skating judging) that robbed Luis Sanchez of Brooklyn (0-1-1)of a clear cut victory and obvious superiority over Wes (Hobbs) Richards. Richards waltzed away from Sanchez disciplined, connecting punches the entire four rounds.He never seemed to land a punch. I had Sanchez, who was never touched, winning 40-32...the judges scored it 39-37, Sanchez, and 38-38, 38-38, a majority draw, for crying out loud. I mean, that was a travesty. Richards never landed a punch, was running away all four rounds.
You can't do that to good fighter like Mr. Sanchez.
