Salinas, CA –  Super middleweight Paul Mendez (19-2-2, 9 KOs) won a ten round split decision over former world title challenger David “The Destroyer” Lopez (41-16-1, 25 KOs) on Friday night at the Salinas Storm House in Salinas, California. The major story line for the fight was the size difference between the two fighters as Lopez missed weight by four pounds and didn’t make any additional effort to cut the remaining weight as he fought at a comfortable weight for the fight.

In the early goings it was mostly Mendez as he stayed outside and boxed the game veteran. As the fight wore on, it appeared that Mendez was not letting go his right hand in particular especially when moving backwards this allowed the tricky southpaw Lopez an entry back into the fight as he stalked him around the ring and began to frustrate Mendez. Late in the fight Mendez was caught with a short hook in an exchange that was eerily similar to the one Ernesto Berrospe caught him with in his last fight before Mendez was able to stop Berrospe in the last round. The punch staggered Mendez who recovered once the bell sounded, but added high drama to the fight as a whole it appeared Mendez had built a large lead up until that point.

In the end Mendez won via split decision with two judges scoring the fight 98-91, 97-92 and one giving it to Lopez 96-94, Mendez had both good and bad things to take from this performance, but most telling was that he was able to recover from a hard shot and keep fighting.

In the co-main event San Jose, CA’s Andy Vences (12-0, 8 KOs) knocked out Golden Boy Promotions’ Santiago Guevara (8-2, 3 KOs) with a crisp short straight right hand in the fourth round that had Guevara unwilling to continue in the fight. Prior to the knockout the fight was all Vences who was moving, picking his spots and executing a specific tactical game plan. It simply looked like Vences was a different level than Guevara who by the third round looked utterly confused as to what to do. The time of the stoppage was 47 seconds into the fourth round.

Vences has accredited a lot of his improvement to his coach, Gabe Flores Sr. of Los Gallos Boxing Academy as he stated in our post-fight interview. After the bout, Vences proposed to his longtime girlfriend in the crowd making it a truly historic night.

The opening bout was a bit bizarre as welterweight Alan Sanchez was converted to a middleweight after his original opponent Steve Claggett had visa issues and couldn’t make the fight, which was scheduled to be the headliner of the event. Sanchez who wanted to stay on the card moved up in weight fighting at 155 lbs. to face a guy on a day’s notice essentially in Carlos Lozano (7-5, 4 KOs). Sanchez appeared to be tentative as he was not use to the weight class and Loazano’s only chance was to land something with bad intentions when Sanchez was coming in. Though not a breathtaking performance, Sanchez earned a dominant decision to start the Fox Sports 1 telecast with the scores of 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 all in his favor.

On the un-televised undercard, Salinas, CA’ s Oscar Rojas’ (1-2) earned his first win over Percy Peterson (1-9-1) of Stockton, CA. Rojas withstood a solid left hook from Peterson that has floored a few fighters before him and attacked Peterson’s body heavily. By the third and fourth round, Peterson found himself on the ropes having to absorb Rojas’ assault looking for just one shot as opposed to Rojas who was throwing in combination. Rojas earned a unanimous decision when it was all said and done.

The television swing bout that happened after the television broadcast had a bizarre story as well. Adrian Rodriguez (1-5-1) of Oakland, CA earned a split decision over Michael Gaxiola (3-3) of Modesto, CA. Why is that so weird well on a lot of levels for starters this is the third time they have fought earlier in their careers and also that the judges announced that Gaxiola won, but after the fight the CSAC went to Gaxiola’s dressing room to explain that the judges read the scorecards wrong and that Rodriguez was the winner even though the entire crowd had left thinking Gaxiola had won the fight.

The odd backstory sadly overshadows one of the more entertaining fights of the night in which two evenly matched featherweights had a very competitive split decision fight. Gaxiola had success being the bigger man and landing from the outside, but Rodriguez who has had a lot of experience against the 21 year-old Gaxiola seemed to have tricks to get inside on Gaxiola this time around. It was a very hard fight to score and a shame it wasn’t able to make it onto the Fox Sports 1 telecast.

In the fight card opened with a pair of brothers fighting as Andy Taraves was able to defeat Angel Alfaro as well as his brother Pete Tavares was able to earn a hard fought, close win over Alda Alfaro.

Full results

Paul Mendez SD10 David Lopez

Andy Vences TKO4 Santiago Guevara  (0:47)

Alan Sanchez UD8  Carlos Lozano

Oscar Rojas UD4 Percy Peterson

Adrian Rodriguez SD4 Michael Gaxiola

Noe “The Mighty Peso” Bracamontes / Team Vences