Friday night at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, FL, 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist, Yan Barthelemy improved to 12-2, 4KO’s and a perfect 4-0 since teaming up with trainer Orlando Cuellar and signing with Joe DeGuardia’s Star Boxing, winning a ten round unanimous decision over Francis Ruiz (9-4, 4 KOs) in the opening bout on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights”. The bout, scheduled for ten rounds in the super bantamweight division, was promoted by The Heavyweight Factory in association with Star Boxing.Barthelemy used acurate punching and a high work rate to dominate Ruiz dropping him once in the third. Ruiz hung tough but was simply over-matched against the highly skilled Cuban Barthelemy. In the end Barthelemy won by scores of 100-89, 98-91 and 97-92.
In the main event of the evening, unbeaten Brad Solomon scored the biggest win of his career by defeating Demetrius Hopkins. Solomon won a unanimous decision with scores of 99-91, 99-91 and 97-93. Solomon was the busier and more effective fighter, while Hopkins was never really able to get into his own game.
It’s his second loss in four fights, and a bad one if he had plans of trying to work his way back into title contention. Solomon now seems primed to take another step up in competition following the win.
