Lara, Manfredo Victorious; The Rest of Friday’s Action

Courtesy of Fightnews:

IBF #9, WBC #11 middleweight Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-6, 20 KOs) scored a ten round unanimous decision over Daniel Edouard (23-4-2, 14 KOs) on Friday night outdoors on a clear 64° January night at Mallory Square in Key West, Florida. Edouard started strong, but Manfredo turned the fight around when he dropped Edouard with a right hand in round four and outpunched Edouard the rest of the way. Scores were 97-92, 98-91, 98-91. Manfredo was a finalist and star in the first season of the TV reality series The Contender. Edouard said he would retire if he lost this fight.

Unbeaten WBA #15 super middleweight Edwin Rodriguez (18-0, 13 KOs) scored a ten round unanimous decision over Aaron Pryor Jr. (15-3, 11 KOs). Scores were 96-93, 98-91, 97-92. Pryor, the son and namesake of the 1996 International Hall of Fame inductee Aaron Pryor (who was in his corner) was deducted a point in round eight.

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By Rocco Morales at ringside

Rising junior middleweight and former Cuban amateur star Erislandy Lara (15-0, 10 KOs) scored a first round annihilation of Delray Raines (18-9-1, 13 KOs) on Friday night at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California. A straight left finished Raines at 2:59.

In the co-feature, a scheduled 6 round jr. welterweight contest, Frankie Gomez, despite his best efforts was unable to put away trial horse Luis Lugo, a loser of 9 of his previous 10 bouts, and was instead stretched the distance for the second consecutive time in winning an uninspired unanimous decision victory. With the victory, Gomez improves to 8-0, 6 KOs while Lugo drops to 11-15-1, 6 KOs.

In opening action, a scheduled four round lightweight contest, once beaten Ramon Valadez pounded on Cesar Garcia for three rounds until finally opening a bad cut over the right eye of Garcia, pinning him against the ropes, unleashing a couple vicious uppercuts and scoring the TKO victory at 2:32 of the third round. Valadez improves to 5-1 (1KO) while Garcia drops to 3-6 (1KO).