By: Ken Hissner
Philly super middleweight Jesse “Hard Work” Hart, 20-0 (16), easily won the first 9 rounds before Dashon “Fly Boy” Johnson, 19-19-3 (6), of Escondito, CA, dropped him with 13 seconds left in the tenth and final round. Hart got up with 4 seconds to go to win the decision. “You can’t judge a fighter by their record. I went 10 rounds and showed I could get off the canvas,” said Hart. Hart is schedule to fight next month’s winner in Las Vegas, NV for the WBO title
It was standing room only with Top Rank, Peltz Boxing and BAM boxing promoting at the 2300 Arena in South Philly. This was a sell out a week before the fight. Hart is son of Eugene “Cyclone” Hart who trains him along with Fred Jenkins.
Super welterweight Ismael “Tito” Garcia, 10-0 (4), of Vineland, NJ, won a split decision over Carlos Garcia, 10-15-1 (7), of Puerto Rico. All scores were 58-56
Philly super lightweight Victor Vasquez, 19-11-1 (5), of Philly was stopped at 2:01 of the second round by Ramesis Gil, 10-14-5, of DR. He complained to referee Blair Talmadge but was taking a beating after coming off the canvas.
Super welterweight Gledwin Ortiz, 3-1 (3), of the Bronx, NY suffered his first defeat at the hands of Philly’s Greg Jackson, 6-2-1. Jackson’s new trainer Bozy Ennis had done a fine improvement of Jackson.
Lightweight southpaw Mike “Yes Indeed” Reed, 18-0 (10), of Waldorf, MD, easily won all six rounds over Samuel Amoako, 21-8 (15), of Ghana and now Silver Springs, MD.
Super lightweight Philly southpaw Jerome Conquest, 5-1 (1), defeated comebacking southpaw Jules Blackwell, 8-5-2 (3), Phoenixville, PA, over six rounds.
Super lightweight prospect Scott Kelleher, 4-0 (2), of Philly, remained unbeaten stopping Josue “El Guerrero” Rivera, 2-7 (2), of Philly, at 0:59 of the opening round. Referee Shawn Clark had no choice halting it after Guerrero hit the canvas twice.
Heavyweight LeShawn Rodriguez, 7-0 (5), of Shirley, NJ, stopped Jose Cortes, 1-1 (0), of Colombia and now of W. Palm Beach, FL, 1:54 of the second round. Rodriguez is training out of Catskills, NY, and has a similar style like Mike Tyson.
Both Philly boxers making their debuts as Karim Gladney, 0-1 (0), was knocked out at 1:43 of the fourth and final round by Isaiah Wise, 1-0 (1), and had to be carried out on a stretcher. By the end of the night it was reported he was doing fine.
Ring announcer Steve Mittman did his usually fine job.