It was an exciting ESPN Friday Night Fights tonight, with two good fights contested in oppressive heat in California.
Juan Carlos Burgos was trying to come back to the ring with a win tonight on ESPN Friday Night Fights, but he left with his second straight draw, coming up even with short-notice opponent Yakubu Amidu underneath blistering sun in Lincoln, Calif.
Scores for the fight were 116-112 Burgos, 116-112 Amidu, and 114-114. BLH had it 114-114, while ESPN analyst Teddy Atlas had it 116-114 Burgos.
Burgos (30-1-2, 20 KO) moved up to lightweight to keep his fight date and accommodate Amidu (20-4-2, 18 KO), who was available to replace Daulis Prescott, but could not get down to 130 pounds. It turned out to have perhaps been a mistake by Burgos to take a fight against a bigger man in his weight class, as Amidu's relentless attack wore on Burgos throughout the fight. To Burgos' credit, he stayed in the fight the whole way, and when it seemed Amidu had the momentum, he got himself back into the bout in the later rounds.
Both fighters should be seriously commended for fighting the way they did in what was rather absurd weather for boxing, with the ringside temperatures around 100 degrees for both of the night's televised bouts. ESPN's Joe Tessitore said that before the fights, a reading of the ring mat had a surface temperature of 132 degrees. It was borderline reckless to be fighting out there tonight.
In the co-feature, Cleveland's Miguel "Silky Smooth" Gonzalez scored an impressive win over Brazil's Josenilson Dos Santos, winning by stoppage in the eighth round when an exhausted and overexposed Dos Santos basically pulled the plug on himself. That's no discredit to Dos Santos, really; again, the conditions were pretty brutal. But Gonzalez was clearly the better fighter in there tonight, and Dos Santos started to unravel around the fourth round, too.
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