On November 14, 2014, Iron Mike Productions hosted a fight card entitled “The Pride of Pittsburgh” at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The card featured a first-round knockout, a bloody war, and a near upset of a young fighter.
In the main event, Sammy Vasquez (17-0, 13 KOs) scored a first-round knockout over Alberto Mosquera (21-1-2, 14 KOs).
Vasquez, 28, of Monessen, Pennsylvania, used a quick southpaw stance to land powerful shots before stepping in and out of range to land more.
His speed was clearly too much for Mosquera, who was dropped with a straight left hand in the middle part of the round.
Mosquera got back to his feet, landed a flush hook of his own, but was shortly knocked down and out by a shot to the body.
In the co-main event, Rod Salka (20-4, 3 KOs), who you may remember from his second-round knockout loss to 140-pound champion Danny Garcia, won a hard-earned unanimous decision victory over Monty Meza Clay (36-3, 22 KOs) in a Lightweight fight.
The fight, it seems, began long before the two entered the ring, as a recent video shows that both fighters nearly came to blows on television.
In the video, an angry Clay tells Salka to keep his hands off of him before telling him that the animosity between the two was “real.”
The action in the ring might have been proof itself of their animosity towards each other as a veritable war broke out between the two Pennsylvania natives.
The shorter Clay, 33, did his best to make each round very uncomfortable for Salka, 31, as he came forward incessantly with hooks and right hands.
Both fighters were cut during a grueling war in which Salka’s boxing skills proved to be the biggest factor: he jabbed, boxed, and ducked many punches, although, as his face showed, he did take a lot of punishment.
The judges scored the bout 98-92,97-94, and 99-91.
In the first televised bout, Erickson Lubin (8-0, 6 KOs) got up from a first-round knockdown to score a unanimous decision victory over Norberto Gonzalez (20-6, 13 KOs) in a Light Middleweight fight.
Erickson Lubin dropped by a nice right hand in Round 1 #Boxing pic.twitter.com/YdT4QakFno
— RoundByRoundBoxing (@RBRBoxing) November 15, 2014
Lubin was suddenly dropped with a right hand after failing to keep his hands up.
Lubin, 19, of Orlando, Florida, got back to his feet and outclassed a tough Gonzalez, but learned an important lesson: being a highly-touted prospect doesn’t mean you’re invincible to knockdowns.
Lubin won with scores of 73-78, 72-78, and 72-78.
