Escobedo Back in Win Column

Last night from Indio, CA, at the Fantasy Springs Casino, lightweight Vincente Escobedo (23-3, 14KOs), dominated Colombian Walter Estrada (38-14-1, 25KOs), in the ten round main attraction on Telefutura’s “Solo Boxeo Tecate.”

Woodland, California’s Vincente Escobedo entered the dual fast coming forward while the 34-year-old southpaw Estrada danced around the ring moving to Vincente’s right and away from his power hand. Escobedo was snapping lots of straight rights to the mid-section and to the face as well as left hooks up top while Estrada tried to measure his opponent with mainly jabs and a few straight lefts and right hooks.

At 2:12 of the 3rd round a cut was opened over Estrada’s left eye that was ruled a punch by third man in the ring Tony Crebbs. The pugilist were taking turns being the aggressor and in the early goings Estrada’s attack consisted of a heavy dose of the left hand which he used for straight shots and crosses to the body as well as numerous straight lefts to the face all behind the jab and all with little success. With seconds to go in the 3rd Escobedo landed his hardest blows yet, a left hook right-hand combination to the head that pushed the Colombian back a few feet.

Walter achieved his first accomplishment in the 4th landing a few straight lefts to the dome of Escobedo who moved backwards and boxed for most of the period connecting on several power strikes while winning all the early rounds. Midway through the 5th Estrada landed a monstrous counter right hook on the button that rang Escobedo’s bell and had him changing directions.

In the 7th Escobedo wanted to pick up the pace and fight harder as he pounded his gloves together as if to say, “C’mon let’s fight.” Vincente was moving forward aggressively and seemed to add some mustard to his punches and a minute into the stanza he caught Estrada with a laser beam right-hand that floored the Colombian. Walter was on unsteady legs and moments after getting back to his feet he was staggered by another straight right. Escobedo didn’t go after his wounded pray with the fury he should have and let him off the hook by only throwing single shots for the rest of the round and taking little chance with a hurt adversary.

A cut was opened over Escobedo’s right eye in the 8th from a clash of heads and Escobedo fought backwards for the entire round while Estrada had his best round landing some nice straight lefts and right hooks to the head of Vincente.

That storyline continued as the last three rounds were close and Estrada got his best work done in the 8th, 9th and 10th by applying pressure and landing some blows up top, as did Escobedo but nothing too significant from either boxer in the final three periods including the 10th and final round.

Scores were 97-92 twice and 96-93 all for Escobedo en-route to a unanimous decision victory as he improves to 23-3 with fourteen knockouts getting himself back in the win column after losing handedly to Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero in his previous bout.

In the six round super bantamweight co-feature 20-year-old Coachella, CA, native Randy Caballero (8-0, 4KOs), cruised to a unanimous decision victory over 21-year-old Hugo Ramos (3-8-2, KO) of Palm Springs, CA.

From the outset Caballero was advancing and landed a hard overhand right to Ramos’ head that set the tone for the fight. Randy’s payload consisted of a steady jab in front of overhand rights, uppercuts and left hooks aimed high and low.

Ramos was winging wide wild rights and lefts to no avail as he got a little rough in the 2nd round with a few low blows while leading with his head but Caballero was picking Hugo off easy with technical strikes. Caballero was not worried about his foe’s power as he held his hands low uncorking power shots.

Hugo’s first real success came when he landed three straight rights to the face of Caballero and started coming forward as they exchanged some good back and forth at the end of the 3rd period with Randy getting the better of it.

Ramos entered the 5th round quick landing three ambitious overhand rights up top as he put his head down and let his hands fly. A majority of the rest of the fight took place on the inside and both pugs were leaning on each other as they went toe-to-toe in a phone booth.

Ramos came out strong again in the 6th and final round driving forward and connecting with a power right-hand on the side Randy’s head but Caballero worked both sides of Hugo’s torso all night and zeroed in on a resounding right uppercut that got the attention of Ramos and put an exclamation point on Caballero’s performance.

When the score cards were announced by “Big” Joe Martinez, Randy Caballero won a unanimous decision with scores of 60-54 across the board. Caballero enhanced his resume to 8-0 with four knockouts as he continues his climb up the ladder.

This was Randy’s fourth decision win in a row after four 1st round knockouts to start his career. Randy’s trainer Marcos Caballero said Randy did not perform as well as he expected. “I don’t know what’s wrong; we have to see what we did. His body wasn’t there. He wasn’t responding and I don’t know what’s wrong. He dominated the fight but not the way we wanted to dominate it,” intoned Marcos Caballero.