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ESPN Friday Night Fights Recap

March 16, 2007

Rockingham Park- Salem, New Hampshire

The scheduled main event for this show was Valdemir Pereira vs. Eric Aiken, but as of 1 P.M. Eastern time Pereira's blood work came back for a third time as inconclusive. The state of New Hampshire then refused to issue Pereira a boxing license for that and so Cruz Carvajal was given Pereira's spot in the fight. Luckily, the promoter had prepared and had Carvajal on hand. Carvajal had been flown in on Wednesday night and touched down in the New England area on Thursday morning for the extent of his prep time for this fight. Aiken on the other hand heard about Carvajal six hours before show time, after training for Pereira for two months and has no idea what to expect creating an interesting match up. Aiken has seen not seen any video of Carvajal, so this is going to be a real challenge for Aiken who should be the favorite being bigger and a recent champion at this weight class.

10 Round-Featherweight Match:

Eric Aiken (16-5, 12 KO, pounds) vs. Cruz Carvajal (28-13-1, 24 KO, 126 pounds)

Both of these men are former world champions. Aiken won his championship by defeating Pereira by disqualification after repeated low blows from Pereira. Aiken then dropped the title in his first attempt to defend the title. Carvajal has been constantly training, so he does not appear out of shape as would be expected of a man who learns he may fight on 24 hour notice. Carvajal was a former champion at Bantamweight (118 pounds) and this is the heaviest he has ever fought at by 4 pounds. Carvajal is also giving up 1.5 inches. This was going to be a title eliminator fight had Pereira been in the match, but with Pereira out that stipulation has been removed from this fight. Carvajal is not going to last this fight. Aiken is much bigger and much quicker. If it wasn't for Aiken's mouthpiece falling out with about 30 seconds to go in the round when he had Carvajal trapped in a corner it is possible the fight could have ended in the first round. Carvajal has really picked up the pace on his part in the early and middle part of round 2 and at the same time Aiken has slowed. They are fighting at really fast pace and I've got the fight even through two. Carvajal apparently has talked about wanting to move back down to 118 or 122 its just this was a great opportunity to take this high a quality fight, Carvajal in round 3 is constantly pinning Aiken to the ropes and working Aiken's body. Aiken is so much bigger and longer this is very surprising based on what I saw in round 1. Carvajal has absolutely dictated the pace and location of the fight in rounds 2 and 3 after being potentially an inopportune pause in the action to replace Aiken's mouthpiece away from hitting the canvas. In round 4, Aiken started throwing some strong right hands that were really rocking Carvajal and have once again evened the fight on my scorecard. Teddy Atlas is reporting that Carvajal was actually in training for a fight that was to take place on Thursday, so he is not at any training disadvantage at all. Teddy Atlas has the fight scored 39-37 through round 4 and round 4 was very hard to score, Joe Tessitore agrees with Atlas' scoring. Aiken is winning the fight at distance and throwing much harder shots when he connects, but inside, against the ropes where this fight is spending way more time than it should be Carvajal is just destroying Aiken. Through round 6 I've got it Carvajal 4 rounds to 2. The average punches landed per round is Carvajal 35, Aiken 19. Teddy Atlas has the fight 5 rounds to 1 for Carvajal, who apparently trains for fights in Mexico by trying to capture armadillos with a flashlight and net in the dark. Aiken has never been past 8 rounds and not only is he going to have to go there he is going to have to be amazing there if he hopes to win this fight. Aiken has lost the real power on his punches as round 8 ends and just as type that Aiken begins to get the power back in his punches by winding up before letting his hands go to just try and hurt Carvajal. Aiken is staging a comeback and fighting desperate as it appears he knows he is behind on the cards. Aiken has won the last two rounds, on both Atlas and my scorecards. Aiken really needs at least a knock down to give the judges something to help him out on the cards. Strangely enough I score the final round for Aiken making my scorecard read 95-95, in a very exciting match. Carvajal was the better fighter tonight but the strong close by Aiken may decide the fight. Teddy Atlas scores the fight (we only differed on round 4): 96-94 for Carvajal awarding the final three rounds to Aiken, the judges score it 96-94 Carvajal, 96-95 Aiken, 96-96 Draw... The fight is a draw. The fans are booing this tremendously. They also booed the score going in favor of Aiken. The crowd clearly thought Carvajal won the fight and was much better tonight. It was a great fight though and a lot of fun to watch, especially the first seven rounds when Carvajal kept the pace so active.