Nwokolo Stops Montano With Right in Sixth at the Universal

Jaime Montano was welcomed to America Wednesday night. By way of Nigeria.

Montano had won 20 of his 23 professional fights, all by knockout. But those were all in his native Mexico.

Wednesday night, the 20-year-old faced Charles Nwokolo, the African welterweight champion out of Lagos, at the Universal Sheraton Hotel. This time, it was Montano who found himself on the wrong end of a knockout.

Nwokolo (16-0, 13 knockouts) floored Montano 37 seconds into the sixth round of their scheduled 10-round main event before a crowd of about 600.

It was the second time Montano had been down. Nwokolo caught him with a left hook in the second round. Montano got up that time, but not in the sixth when a Nwokolo right ended the fight.

Nwokolo calls himself Young Dick Tiger, and is the nephew of the late middleweight and light heavyweight champion of the world.

Earlier in the night, welterweight Elias Madrid finally got a fight he’d sought for two years. It took him less than two minutes to turn the chance into a win.

Madrid, sidelined since December, 1984, with rib and ankle injuries, knocked out David Guerra (7-9, 4 knockouts) of Lansing, Mich., at 1:49 of the first round in their scheduled eight-round bout. Madrid, from Sylmar, is 14-0-1 with 12 knockouts.

It was a right hand that first hurt Guerra and sent him down midway through the first round. He rose to his feet, but never got back in the fight. Madrid finished him off seconds later with a flurry of punches.

“I was kind of surprised the fight ended that quickly,” Madrid said. “I thought I had lost my power, but I guess I got it back.”

Madrid is planning to work overtime to make up for his long layoff. He’ll be back to fight in less than a month on the next Universal card.

In the night’s first preliminary fight, David Kilgour knocked Domingo Nieves down at the end of the first round, then stopped him 1:07 into the second round of a scheduled four-round fight between the two Los Angeles middleweights. Kilgour evened his record at 1-1, sending Nieves to defeat in his professional debut.

The second fight also ended in the second round, heavyweight Levi Billips (1-1) of Los Angeles, stopping Tony Crawford (0-1) of San Diego at 2:37 of the round. That fight had been scheduled for four rounds.

In another preliminary fight, super welterweight Otis Pimpleton (2-1-1) of Sepulveda won a unanimous six-round decision over Eric McNair (3-2) of Los Angeles. Pimpleton thus avenged his only loss, which came at the hands of McNair last June.