King Promotion held a press conference at the 2300 Arena in South Philly Wednesday night the CEO Marshall Kauffman announced that the proposed main event between Junior Castillo and Gabriel Pham is off. Both fighters this writer had been told suffered training injuries.
With a solid undercard Kauffman moved Philly’s unbeaten bantamweight Christian Carto, 11-0 (11) into his first 8 round bout. Carto will meet his toughest opponent today against opponent Alonso “El Elegate” Melendez 14-1 (12), of Chihuahua, MEXICO.
Carto is a former National Golden Gloves champion who lets his fists “do his talking” in the ring! He was scheduled to fight in Philly on September 22nd but his trainer Mickey Rosati was away so they were fortunate to get this opening on short notice.
Melendez 14-1 (12) will be making his US debut and first fight in two years. He is tall and thin and in obvious good shape while speaking through his trainer.
“11 Sports Network will be showing what is a solid undercard and a new and stronger main event. We will donate $1.00 from each ticket and from the 50-50 tickets half the earnings to those suffering in Puerto Rico,” said Kauffman.
The opening bout on the televised portion of the event will have a long waited match-up between Philly’s southpaw Jerome Conquest, 8-2 (1), and Pennsauken, NJ, lightweight Carlos Rosario, 7-2 (4). “I promote Rosario and when both parties agreed I immediately made this match,” said Kauffman.
Welterweight Mykal Fox, 14-0 (4), of Forestville, MD, is pitted against Marion Aguas, 9-1 (6), of Quito, ECU. Philly super lightweight Maynard Allison, 9-1 (6), will meet Juan Rodriguez, 7-7-1 (5), of Haymarket, VA.
Super lightweight David Gonzales, 8-2-2 (2), of Philly meets Darius Ervin, 4-1 (0), of L.A. Super welterweight Erik Spring, 10-1-2 (1), Reading, PA, takes on Anthony Prescott, 6-7-2 (2), of Cherry Hill, NJ.
Other young Philly talents like Tyrone Crawley, 7-0 (0), Brandon Robinson, 6-1 (5), and Amir Shabazz, 4-1 (1), will be featured.
Doors open at the 2300 Arena at 6pm with the first fight scheduled at 7:15pm. It will be an 11 bout card.