Ryan Garcia Defeats Jayson Velez on ESPN2 Main Event
Less than two months after knocking out former world title challenger Fernando Vargas, Ryan Garcia continues to develop and win main event fights on ESPN.
On the eve of HBO’s grand Cinco De Mayo boxing telecast from the StubHub Center, the venue hosted a night of Golden Boy Boxing on ESPN2 where Garcia defeated Puerto Rican boxer Jayson Velez in the main event. Garcia won by unanimous decision with three identical and wide scorecards of 99-91, 99-91 and 99-91. With the win, Garcia wins the vacant NABF and WBO-NABO super featherweight titles.
From almost the start of the fight all the way until the end, Garcia was the busier and more accurate puncher, overwhelming a tough Velez that refused to get knocked down. Garcia landed 152 out of 531 punches thrown (29 percent) against Velez’s 71 landed punches out of 405 total punches thrown (18 percent). Velez was tough enough to be able to last the distance against Garcia, forcing the 19-year-old prospect to go 10 rounds for the first time in his career.
For Velez, the win snapped a three-fight win streak and put the brakes on a career resurgence after four straight losses. Velez was coming off a 12th-round TKO over Juan Manuel Lopez back in March to win the interim WBC FECARBOX super featherweight title.
One of the feature fights on the card saw Gary “Spike” O’Sullivan, a middleweight contender who had an offer to fight Gennady Golovkin on the HBO telecast on May 5, easily dispatch once-beaten welterweight Berlin Abreu. O’Sullivan dominated Abreu and got the TKO win after three short rounds.
