By Jake Donovan
BIRMINGHAM
—Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Julian 'J-Rock' Williams primed the crowd at Bartow Arena with a one-sides 6th round stoppage of Russia's Armen Ovsepyan.
Luis Rosario is more than 1,000 miles away from the National Puerto Rican Day parade in New York, but the unbeaten Boricua was in a festive mood in stopping Mexico's Andres Balderas (3-3, 2KOs) inside of three rounds. A first round knockdown paved the way for the rout, with Balderas conceding defeat at 2:08 of round three. Rosario (6-0-1, 5KOs) is a stablemate of Jose Pedraza, who faces Andrey Klimov in a vacant junior lightweight title fight later this evening.
The first knockout of the night came courtesy of Birmingham's own Kenneth McNiel, who stopped hapless Mikel Williams (8-31, 3KOs) in the very first round. A left uppercut was enough to put Williams down for the full ten count, with McNiel (8-1, 5KOs) hailed a knockout winner at 2:41 of round one.
Local super middleweight Keandre Leatherwood avenged a shocking knockout loss at the hands of Taronze Washington (17-20, 9KOs) earlier this year with a six-round unanimous decision. Scores of 60-54 (twice) and 59-55 all were in favor of Leatherwood (15-3-1, 10KOs), who took few risks in picking up his first win in 14 months.
Tuscaloosa's own Keith Thompson cruised to a four-round decision over Louisiana journeyman Andrew Greeley in their long awaited rubber match. Scores were 40-36 across the board in a bout that remained in one direction throughout. Thompson—who trains with Wilder under the watchful eye of Jay Deas—picks up his first win in more than a year, improves to 8-3 (4KOs). Greeley falls to 8-45-3 (1KO); his last win came against a then-unbeaten Thompson nearly three years ago.
The opening bout of the 11-fight card turned out to be a corker, but with Juan Cabrera keeping his unbeaten record intact following a debatable decision win over Timothy Hall Jr. Scores were 78-74 (twice) and 77-75 in favor of Cabrera (23-0, 16KOs), who was fighting for the first time in nearly a year. Hall (9-21, 5KOs) gave the unbeaten Dominican prospect all that he could handle, but his aggression wasn't well-received by the three judges, who instead favored Cabrera's stick and move style.
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
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