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ESPN Friday Night Fights Recap

March 23, 2007

Foxwoods Resort and Casino Mashantucket, Connecticut

USBA Welterweight (147 pounds) Championship 12 Round Match:

Delvin Rodriguez (20-1-1, 12 KO's, 145 pounds) vs. Jesse Feliciano (14-5-3, 8 KO's, 147 pounds)

Rodriguez is acquiring quitea highlight reel of knockdowns and knockouts. Rodriguez is considered one of the fighters on the cusp of becoming a big time star fighter. Feliciano is being brought in to test Rodriguez and it is quite a test. Feliciano's record may not look overly impressive, but looking at Feliciano's losses and how they were earned makes that record very impressive. Feliciano only loses to top guys and when he loses he makes the other work for it. Rodriguez' one loss is a lifetime ago back in the 1990's via a split decision. Teddy Atlas says the key for Rodriguez is to counter off of Feliciano left jab, he will be coming forward with all night long,with an overhand right followed by the left hook which will be the knockout punch. The keys for Feliciano are to duck under the over hand right counter of Rodriguez, which will definitely be coming, and slide to Rodriguez' right allowing Feliciano to throw an unobstructed left hook to the head. The punch Rodriguez has the most problem defending is the left hook and it has sent Rodriguez to the canvas before.

As round 1 begins, the fight appears to not be going as planned. Feliciano is not pushing the pace as expected, but instead, sitting back appearing to want to counter. Given the opportunity, Rodriguez decides to initiate the offense early, but not really scoring with anything. This has to effect Rodriguez' strategy, as this is clearly not how he predicted the fight to go. Feliciano is going to a hit and run plan of attack. Rodriguez is refusing to initiate the action. Rodriguez pretty much has his feet set in the center of the ring circling to where Feliciano is, waiting for the eventual pounce to counterpunch. The Connecticut fighter's tactics are not scoring that well, but Feliciano may gas with the energy he is using for his strategy. Rodriguez eventually worked to cut off the angles and trap the circling Feliciano, and force the fight in a small area on Rodriguez' terms. In those encounters, Rodriguez scored effectively and won the round 10-9. Both fighters are wearing the exact same style trunks (red with white trim), so ESPN, in their helpful attempt to differentiate the fighters to the viewer, has one fighter labeled as wearing white shoes and one as wearing black shoes as the identifying apparel. The production truck then conveniently went to a ground level camera right after the graphic so I could notice Feliciano is the one in the white shoes (and after Labor Day)and Rodriguez is wearing the black shoes. Feliciano who lives in Las Vegas, which is in the Pacific time zone, only flew to Connecticut located in the Eastern time zone (3 hours later) on Wednesday prior to the Friday fight. Hesaid the time change is effecting him. So, Felicianois fighting jet lag as well as Rodriguez in this fight. Round 2 will likely be scored for Rodriguez who looks very good in this fight.

Feliciano is coming straight in a lot, making himself an easier target for Rodriguez who just simply has not missed. The Foxwoods is Rodriguez' home turf and seems completely at home in that ring. Rodriguez has never been past 8 rounds in his career. Through round 3 though he looks great and wins another round. Rodriguez takes a spill to the canvas in round 4, but it is ruled a slip and correctly so by the referee, a very veteran official assigned the contest who does a good job. This fight is so refreshing to watch after that second contest. Rodriguez wins round 4 and is looking very solid in doing it. Teddy Atlas is pointing out very minor tweaks needed to the game of Rodriguez. That whole hit and run concept has pretty much abandoned the hit and run game plan instead adopting the Popeye game plan of "I yam what I yam , and that's all I yam." Which means Feliciano is pretty much just heading forward with left jabs, and eating Rodriguez overhand rights for his effort. Feliciano scores well though in round 5, and reminds Rodriguez why it is difficult to box an opponent, who keeps coming forward. This round was really back and forth making it very difficult to score. I'm going to lean towards Rodriguez, but that is highly debatable.

Teddy Atlas and I have Rodriguez way ahead on our scorecards, but through five rounds Feliciano has actually landed one more punch. Round 6 is again more excitement, as Feliciano is really trying to make something happen. Feliciano is weathering a bevy ofpunches to try and get on the inside and hit Rodriguez. I again think Rodriguez won the round, but this is not over by a longshot. Atlas scored round 5 in favor of Feliciano, but all of the rest for Rodriguez. Rodriguez' corner told their fighter he was getting too macho out in the ring after round 6. Atlas is pointing out that Rodriguez' left hand is dropping very low in his stance about to waist level. This provides a few problems in the way Rodriguez like to fight. First, it makes it a lot easier for Feliciano to land punches on Rodriguez, with Rodriguez' left hand too low to block. That is probably the worst consequence of Rodriguez dropping his lead hand. Another is Rodriguez still brings his left hand up to his shoulder to throw punches with that hand, which first is a huge give away the punch is coming, and also a very slow way to throw a punch. The entire recoil and actually release time of the punch when Rodriguez' left hand is around his hip opens up great counter opportunities to Feliciano. Again in round 7 Rodriguez goes down due to a push/feet entanglement issue and the referee calls it accurately as a slip. Feliciano appears to be really tiring. The last two times Feliciano worked his way in close he allowed himself to be tied up as opposed to throwing punches staying active and doing damage in tight which is the only place he can win this fight. Round 7 though as have all of the other rounds on my scorecard goes Rodriguez.

Out of nowhere, in round 8, and I mean nowhere, Feliciano, who looked to just be gassing out almost knowing the decision loss is coming and this is not his night, unleashed a furious combo that knocked Rodriguez down. I am really surprised, with how out of it Rodriguez looked going down, that he was able to answer the referee's count and successfully walk towards the official when asked. The ropes kept a reeling Rodriguez up for a few seconds only to take more punishment and three more seconds standing up against those ropes and this fight would have stopped. Rodriguez was in complete control of this round up until he got probably harder than he's ever been hit before. Rodriguez' trainer was even being interviewed in the corner during the round saying he agree with Teddy Atlas and wished would his fighter would throw the follow up hook behind the overhand right and end the fight. That trainer was thinking big finish to a dominating win, not this. Rodriguez is now standing, but just barely and that is about it. Those legs are rubber and the ring feels like under his feet someone is going to get a highlight reel stoppage tonight, it's just not him with over a minute to go in the round. Rodriguez after fighting for all he is worth and trying desperately to survive the round, with flailing punches, holding on or whatever is necessary to back to his corner, finally succumbs to a second knockdown. Not so much from one punch, but just collapsing to the mat from the effort and fighting all he could and still taking punches from Feliciano. Amazingly, Rodriguez stands up before the referee has used up his count again. I'm exhausted just watching the effort Rodriguez is using to try and survive this last minute. The referee asks Rodriguez to walk towards him and Rodriguez completes the task satisfactorily. This fight will continue. As time in is declared, there is now 22 seconds until Rodriguez can make it to the safety of his corner. Rodriguez is by no means out of the woods. Feliciano is clearly aware he is down on points and Rodriguez can recover. If Rodriguez makes it back to his corner, there is no guarantee as to how wobbly Rodriguez will return to start the next round. Feliciano's best chance to win this fight ends in 22 seconds. Only 3 seconds after action is resumed Rodriguez goes down again for the third and what will be the final time tonight as the referee has called a stop to this contest. Rodriguez goes tumbling under the bottom rope and nearly out of the ring. This was an amazing round.

The final decision is the winner by TKO 2:42 into round 8 is Jesse Feliciano and new USBA Welterweight Champion. This was as exciting as it gets in round 8. Feliciano absolutely earned this. Congratulations to Feliciano that was a hard fought performance by him in the win and he deserves to savor this win for a while. The heart shown by Rodriguez in the effort to stay in the fight at the end was amazing. Rodriguez fought a great first 22 minutes, but had a hole exposed to go work on in the gym. He will definitely be back and eventually be an elite fighter still in his mid 20's. After having a cut taken care of in the locker room, Feliciano, comes out for his post match interview. Feliciano had apparently intended on a late round KO victory. Feliciano actually believed the knockout would come even later.