Lewis Faces Unknown, Beats Leon by Knockout

Mark Lewis took a trip into the unknown Thursday and survived in the main event at the Irvine Marriott.

Lewis scored a seventh-round knockout over Eduardo Leon in the junior welterweight bout in front of a sellout crowd of 1,120 in the first show of the 14th year of the event.

But a few hours before the bout, Lewis, who is from Mira Loma, had no idea who he was going to be fighting because his scheduled opponent, Joani Cervantes, dropped out because he had the flu.

But event organizers decided that Leon, of Mexico, would move up from the undercard. “I didn’t know anything about him,” Lewis said, “That’s the worst kind of guy to fight.”

Lewis got an instant education with a few seconds left in the first round. Leon put Lewis on the canvas with a left hook. But Lewis bounced up and was never in trouble again.

Lewis (17-3-1) dominated the rest of the way, winning the next five rounds, 10-9, on all three cards. Lewis had Leon pinned on the ropes and looking helpless at the end of the fifth round and for much of the sixth. When it happened again in the seventh, referee James Jen-Kin stopped the bout 42 seconds into the round primarily because Leon had stopped defending himself.

The decision was met with boos by the crowd, which wanted Lewis to floor Leon (19-7).

On the undercard:

Featherweight Naoya Hirahara (7-2-2) of Japan beat East Los Angeles’ Juan Carlos Martinez with a split decision, 57-54, 57-55, and lost, 57-55. Martinez is 3-8.