Montenegro Taken to Hospital After Knockout in 7th

Rogelio Montenegro, a previously unbeaten boxing sensation from Mexico City, was taken to Northridge Hospital Medical Center with a possible head injury Tuesday night after being knocked out in the seventh round of a welterweight bout at the Country Club in Reseda.

“He was nauseous and dizzy and in bad shape, but the hospital said he’s OK,” said ring physician Robert Karns, who attended Montenegro and said the boxer likely would undergo a CAT scan at the hospital. “He’s up and around.”

A hospital spokesman said Montenegro was “stable and awake.”

Montenegro, 147, who came into the fight with a record of 26-0-1, including 24 knockouts, fell late in the seventh to a two-fisted attack by David Kamau, 140, a native of Kenya now living in Los Angeles.

Montenegro lay motionless on the mat for seven minutes, his eyes open. He was taken from the ring on a stretcher.

Leading on all three scorecards entering the seventh round, Montenegro had used stinging left hooks and powerful rights to knock Kamau down in the first round and stagger and bloody the Kenyan in the second and third rounds.

Kamau began to take control of the fight in the sixth round of the scheduled 10-round bout, however, and rocked Montenegro with dozens of hard punches to the head.

In the seventh, he stunned Montenegro with a left-right combination and then landed as many as 30 unanswered punches, sending Montenegro reeling.

Montenegro collapsed in a neutral corner, tried to get up and fell hard as Karns rushed into the ring at 1:38 of the round.

Kamau, who improved to 9-0 with his seventh knockout, leaned against the ropes and stared at his fallen opponent in obvious concern until Montenegro was lifted from the ring on the stretcher.

In a later bout, heavyweight contender Orlin Norris, now living and training in Campo, Calif., knocked out Danny Wofford (10-12-1) of Columbia, S.C., in the 10th round. Norris, who sustained a severe knee injury in his last bout against Bert Cooper on Feb. 17, is 23-2.

Norris held the North American Boxing Federation heavyweight title for two years before losing it to Cooper because of the freak knee injury, sustained late in a fight he was winning easily.

In a preliminary bout, Larry Loy of Van Nuys fought to a four-round draw with Paul Padilla of Fresno.

Loy, 129, won the second and fourth rounds on the scorecards of all three judges and Padilla, 132, won the first and third rounds on all three cards.

Loy is 3-0-1, Padilla 2-0-1.

Earlier Tuesday, the Ten Goose Boxing Club of Van Nuys announced that its unbeaten featherweight, Rafael Ruelas (20-0) of Arleta, will fight Sept. 25 at the Country Club against an opponent to be named later.

Ten Goose President Dan Goossen said that former welterweight contender Randy Shields, 34, of North Hollywood will fight for the first time since January, 1983. He will fight on the Sept. 25 card.