Montes Knocks Out Lehman With a Flurry in the 5th Round

Persistence paid off handsomely for John Montes in the main event at the Irvine Marriott boxing card Monday night.

Montes, a super lightweight from Whittier with a reputation that is growing with each victory, knocked out Ricky Lehman 38 seconds into the fifth round to raise his record to 31-4.

Montes knocked Lehman down in the first and second rounds to set up the final fall. Lehman came out the aggressor early, but Montes simply deflected some of Lehman’s wild blows and waited for an opening.

He found it, dropping Lehman twice with rights to the head. Those rights seemed to take much of the steam out of Lehman.

Lehman was persistent, but by relying on jabs, Montes opened up a cut over Lehman’s eye in the fourth round and Lehman was pretty much through after that.

The referee stopped the fight early in the fifth round when Lehman had difficulty responding to a flurry by Montes, and the knockout was awarded to Montes.

Lehman, of Tucson, fought well but wasn’t patient enough against the more experienced Montes. Lehman’s record fell to 17-5.

On the undercard, Geraldo Nava of Santa Ana knocked out Joaquin Garcia of Pasadena at 1:39 of the first round and heavyweight Dennis Reddick of Inglewood won by decision over Dave Yonko of Long Beach.

Also, Greg Puente of Alhambra won by decision over Alex Vega of Los Angeles and Lee Sentinella of Huntington Beach won a split decision over Zack Boldan of North Hollywood.

In a battle of rookies, Doug Medley of Ontario knocked out Dave Kilgore of Encino at 52 seconds of the first round. In the final bout of the evening, Troy Weaver, brother of former heavyweight champion Mike Weaver, knocked out Andre Williams of Los Angeles at 1:40 of the first round.