PACKING QUITE A PUNCH FOR THE WIN
Albuquerque boxer moves to 15-1 with 8th knockout
Albuquerque boxer Jason Sanchez connected with a devastating blow to the liver of Brazil’s Adeilson Dos Santos for a fourth-round knockout on Saturday.
All the available data suggested that Brazilian boxer Adeilson Dos Santos had a strong chin.
No one has a strong liver, though, and that’s what Albuquerque’s Jason Sanchez targeted. Bull’s eye. Sanchez’s shot to the liver was the decisive blow in Sanchez’s victory over Dos Santos by fourth-round knockout in a featherweight (126-pound) bout Saturday in Reno, Nevada.
The win improved Sanchez’s record to 15-1 with eight knockouts. Dos Santos, who’d been stopped in only two of his previous 25 pro bouts, is 19-7 with 15 KOs.
Sanchez was the superior fighter from the opening bell, peppering Dos Santos to the head and the body from both sides. Dos Santos offered little in return.
Then, late in the fourth, came the shot to Dos Santos’ unprotected liver. The Brazilian dropped to the canvas but got to his feet, beating referee Jay Nady’s count.
Then, however, Dos Santos sank back to the canvas without taking another telling blow from Sanchez. Such is the pain of a punch to the liver. Dos Santos was counted out with just one second left in the fourth.
The impressive victory over Dos Santos, a reliable “gate keeper” who has gone the distance with the likes of Jamel Herring, Michael Conlan and Evgeny Smirnov, can only advance Sanchez’s status in the sport. He’s a Top Rank, Inc., contract fighter, his only loss coming via unanimous decision against then-WBO featherweight champion Oscar Valdez in June.
Team Sanchez in the past has pursued a fight with 2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson (13-0, seven KOs), who in Saturday’s main event pitched a nearshutout in defeating Joet Gonzales for the WBO featherweight title vacated by Valdez.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. But Sanchez’s victory over Dos Santos, coupled with his courageous performance in the loss to Valdez, should have him in the conversation.
An arrest has been made in an Oct. 15 shooting in which 19-year-old Johnny Lorenzo Tapia, the adopted son of the late world boxing champion Johnny Tapia, was wounded.
As of Sunday, Luis Pedro Armijo, 38, was being held without bond at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
According to a criminal complaint, young Tapia was riding a motorcycle when some sort of argument took place near the intersection of Montgomery and San Mateo NE. Tapia took a bullet to the leg from a shot fired from a vehicle.
A warrant for Armijo’s arrest was issued on Tuesday. He was booked into the MDC on Friday on charges of shooting a firearm from a vehicle and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.
Teresa Tapia, Johnny Tapia’s widow, posted on Facebook that her son was recovering well — though for medical reasons the bullet has not been removed.
The week of Oct. 13-19 was a difficult one for the Tapia family. Johnny Tapia’s gravesite was vandalized the same night her son was shot, Teresa Tapia posted.