In front of a packed house at the Paramount Theater in Long Island, New York, hometown hero Cletus Seldin improved to 16-0 with 13 KOs after am impressive fifth-round TKO victory over a game, but over matched Johnny Garcia on ESPN 2 Friday Night Fights.
Seldin charged Garcia (19-3-1, 11 KOs) like a bull firing off looping hooks with the left and right. Seldin managed to mix in a few elbows into the mix as well. Garcia managed to answer back with a punch and push. Seldin narrowly avoided being knocked down in the first, even though his glove touched the canvas, the referee called it a slip.
Seldin repaid Garcia with a raking right hook which sent Garcia into the ropes. Seldin again lunged in head first and initiated a furious exchange inside.
Seldin continued slugging away in Round 2, landing an overhand right and followed up with three left handed uppercuts. Seldin showed off his love of fighting in close quarters, while Garcia was trying to adapt and land some body shots in return.
Seldin’s tendency of roughhousing all showed as he pushed off on Garcia’s neck with a few elbows in the third round.
Seldin hurt Garcia with a looping left hook to the ear which hurt Garcia badly. Seldin chased Garcia around the ring trying to land the one shot to end the fight. Garcia plainly refused to hold and tried to take the power and just barely escaped the round.
Garcia was unable to survive the fifth round as the hard charging Seldin connected with big right hand to wobble Garcia again. While in the corner, Seldin unloaded a series of four unanswered left uppercuts and Garcia just leaned back and tried to take them. Seldin then stepped back and let go a right handed hook and the referee jumped in to save Garcia from himself.
Seldin is a fan-friendly fighter who likes to keep throwing punches and wouldn’t mind if the fight took place inside of a phone booth. This was Seldin’s 12th appearance at the Paramount, which is the same theater that produced fellow Long Island fighter, Chris Algieri.
Raymond Serrano earned a hard fought majority-decision victory in the televised co-feature over Jeremy Bryan in a fight which had a bit of everything including blood, knockdowns of both fighters and Bryan’s mouth piece flying out of the ring after a clutching left hook from Serrano.
Both fighters were trying to find themselves for the first three rounds until a jittery Bryan (17-6, 9 KO’s) caught Serrano (21-3, 9 KOs) flush at the bell to end round and scored a knockdown.
Bryan gained some confidence and started taking risks until Serrano connected with a right hand, which stunned Bryan. On the way down Bryan did a textbook tackle and took Serrano down with him. The referee peeled Serrano away and bell rang to end Round 5. Bryan did not look good between rounds.
Both fighters came out with a sense of urgency in Round 6 as both heads clashed, opening a large cut on Serrano’s hairline over hie left eye. The ringside doctor examined the cut and let the fighters continue to slug away.
Serrano’s cut man, who happens to be his father, did a good job to stop the cut and make it a non factor.
Serrano, behind a stiff jab, started to take control of the fight. Bryan tried to force the action including an all-out flurry of punches to end the fight, but Serrano had done enough to sway two of the judges to score the majority decision victory in his favor 97-91 and 96-92 while the first judge saw it even.
Daniel Gonzalez improved to 8-0-1, 3 KOs with a unanimous decision victory over Ken Alvarez (6-1-2, 3KOs). The judges scored it 59-53, 58-54 x2
Gonzales was smaller than Alvarez but was able to get inside and land solid combinations.
After a violent exchange in Round 2, Gonzalez suffered a bad cut cut above his right eye and continued landing the sharper punches including a right hand to punctuate the round.
Gonzalez dropped Alvarez in the fourth round and tried to end the fight with hard body shots while Alvarez was just trying to hold on. Gonzalez would go on to stun Alvarez again in the fifth and Alvarez simply ran out of gas in the sixth and just barely made it to the finish line.
