Salas stops Yeyo to advance to semis of Contender series
Team Canada’s Ricardo “Magic Man” Salas stopped his Jamaican counterpart Nico “Venom” Yeyo 53 seconds in the fifth round of the eighth Wray & Nephew White Overproof Rum Contender Boxing Series at the Chinese Benevolent Association on Wednesday night.
Jamaica entered Wednesday night’s clash with a 2-1 advantage in the semi-finals after number one seed Richard “Frog” Holmes and former champion Devon “Concrete” Moncriffe had earlier scored victories against Waseem El Senawi and Larone Whyte, respectively.
Dave Leblond accounted for former champion Donovan Campbell after two rounds to give Team Canada the other semi-final spot.
Yeyo, who knocked out the Team Canada’s number one seed Mayron Zeferino in 21 seconds, had promised to continue on his merry way before the fight to give Team Jamaica a 3-1 advantage, but he encountered traffic along the way in a more technically efficient and just as rugged Salas.
Following extreme exertion he looked to be out of steam for trying too hard to finish off his opponent with big booming swings that missed more often than not, and Yeyo set up shop along the ropes.
And, after a number of unanswered shots from Salas in the final round, referee Owen Nelson stepped in to stop the carnage, awarding the fight to Salas by the technical knockout route to bring the teams level with two places each in the semi-finals.
In a post-fight interview, Yeyo said he didn’t think the referee should have stopped the fight. “No, I was not disappointed, because I think it was the referee’s call to do what he thought was best. But I thought even though I was not responding for a time he was not hurting me, and I don’t think he should have stopped the fight. How much time you see fighters from overseas get backup by a barrage of punches and referee allow him to come out of that and start throwing back punches. I don’t think he should have stopped the fight,” Yeyo contended.
Following his victory over the aggressive Yeyo, Salas suggested that it was fairly easy to adopt to the rugged style of Yeyo. “That was easy,” he responded through his interpreter Shaka Wilmot. “When one enters the ring he has to expect anything and must be prepared to adapt quickly,” he added.
And, regarding the manner in which the fight ended, he said: “No, he went against the rope and was not responding.”