Boxing at Pond Delivers a Knockout--Six Out of Six, in Fact

Any way you score it, the Pond’s boxing debut has to be called a knockout.

Six fights, six knockouts--three in the first round. The opening night crowd Monday of 4,171 exceeded everyone’s expectations.

“I’m ecstatic,” said John Nicoletti of the Pond, which co-promoted the fight with Forum Boxing. “We said from the beginning that we wanted to build our crowds. Our crowd responded with giving us something to shoot at. We thought anything above 2,500 would be a tremendous showing. With over 4,000, it shows that boxing can not only survive in Orange County but thrive.”

Most of the crowd was on the freeway or in the parking lot when junior lightweight Eddie Contreras of Santa Paula set the tone for the evening with a 61-second knockout of Pacoima’s Sergio Macias.

The first main event was actually the longest bout of the night and it didn’t last four rounds. Victor Rabanales’ five months of inactivity showed, but his age was less evident. Rabanales, the 33-year-old former World Boxing Council’s bantamweight champion, started slowly against Alejandro Sanabria, but he knocked down Sanabria with a looping right in the third and finished him in the fourth with a vicious left-right combination.

Rabanales had trouble finding the range in the first two rounds as Sanabria’s left jab kept him away.

“I lost my rhythm because I hadn’t fought since September,” Rabanales said. “I was losing distance because of the jab, but that’s when I changed my guard.”

Rabanales (42-14-2) of Mexico City said he is interested in a rematch with Wayne McCullough, who beat him in a unanimous 12-round decision in June of 1994.

“I don’t worry about my age,” he said. “The opportunity to fight for another title will come this year.”

Junior welterweight Carlos “Bolillo” Gonzalez (44-2, 39 knockouts) is hoping for the same opportunity after his first-round knockout of Silverio Flores (17-4). Gonzalez landed an overhand right that sent Flores into the ropes, then he floored Flores with a solid left hook. Gonzalez spent the next minute hitting Flores with a barrage of lefts, rights and uppercuts before referee Chuck Hassett mercifully stopped the bout.

“I didn’t have anything to prove except that I was in top physical and mental condition,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez lost his World Boxing Organization title to Zack Padilla in June of 1993, but he has won eight of his past nine fights, including Monday’s victory with the 21st first-round knockout of his career.

“I’m totally clean now,” he said. “I was drinking a lot when I fought Padilla.”

Gonzalez hopes to regain his WBO title and he wouldn’t mind taking on Oscar De La Hoya or Julio Cesar Chavez.

The last three fights were knockouts by Blythe junior featherweight David Vasquez (third round), Pico Rivera junior featherweight Alvaro Soto (second round) and Lynwood light heavyweight Fernando Zuniga (first round).

“The knockouts are great for the fans,” Nicoletti said. “Hopefully the people in attendance felt like they got their money’s worth.”

The Pond marketed the fight toward the Latino community and Nicoletti was satisfied with that strategy.

“Obviously it worked,” he said. “We’ll work on building and perfecting that in the future.”