Held this past Sunday, January 22, at the Masonic Temple Downtown, the Detroit Brawl attracted a near sell-out crowd, who took in an exciting night of no less than 10 fights. In the night’s welterweight main event, Detroit’s Lanardo Tyner (31-10-2, 20 KOs) proved he still has plenty left in the tank as he made a meal out of Hungary’s Istvan Dernanecz (10-5, 7 KOs).
Tyner, one of the city’s most beloved fighters, scored an impressive TKO in the first round (1:58).
And in the co-main event, Detroit bantamweight James Gordon Smith (12-0, 7 KOs) had an usually easy night, as he took out Hungary’s Szilveszter Ajtai (10-4-1, 5 KOs) at the 1:00 mark of round two. Having had several slugfests in a row, Smith used his considerable talent to take out his Hungarian foe with a flurry of hard punches along the ropes.
“Boxing’s big comeback continues,” said a happy Salita, post-fight. “The goal of this series was to showcase the best young prospects in the city in competitive match-ups and we’ve done it and the fans have responded very well. The crowd today was very large and loud and came out in force to support their local fighters. It was a great event and thank you to everyone, especially Greektown Casino for their continued support.”
Other Results:
Detroits Ja’Rico O’Quinn scored a third-round TKO (2:34) over Chicago’s Angel Carvajal.
In the fight of the night, super middleweights Deandre Ware of Toledo and Juan Rojas-Sanchez of Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico, fought to an exciting six-round split draw. Scores were 56-58, 58-56 and 57-57.
Heavyweight Junior Wright of Evanston, Illinois, knocked out Detroit’s Damon McCreary at 2:04 of round two.
In another heavyweight match-up, Detroit’s Marcus Carter scored a TKO 2 (1:23) over Manitowoc, Wisconsin’s Timothy Dunn.
Super featherweight Dwayne Zeigler of Montgomery, Alabama won a four-round unanimous decision (40-36, 40-36 and 39-37) of Charles Clark of Dallas, Texas.
Detroit super lightweight Larry Ventus Jr. knocked out Fort Myers, Florida’s Jesus Lule with a single left hook. The knockout came at 2:26 of round two.
Super welterweight Ardreal Holmes of Flint knocked out Georgia’s Bryan Goldsby at 2:59 of round two.
Cruiserweight Alexey Zubov of Detroit via Magnitogorsk, Russia, stopped Budapest, Hungary’s Andras Csomor at 1:05 of round three.
