Chalk one up for the boxer.
Las Cruces’ Austin Trout, using his boxer’s right jab and defensive skills to huge advantage, defeated Albuquerque’s Diego Sanchez by fourth-round TKO Friday night on a BKFC bare-knuckle fight card at Tingley Coliseum.
It was the bare-knuckle debut for both men.
Sanchez, 41, a highly successful MMA fighter for more than two decades, hit mostly air with his punches. Meanwhile, Trout bloodied Sanchez’s face with his accurate blows. Trout scored a knockdown with a right hook before the one-sided fray was halted.
Trout said the fight went basically according to his plan.
“(I thought) if I can’t hurt him, it’s gonna be a long night,” Trout said. “But the jab was enough to stun him and keep him off me. So thank God for that.”
In Friday’s main event, Cleveland’s Lorenzo Hunt retained his BKFC light heavyweight title with a first-round knockout of Minnesota’s Mike Richman.
In a featured flyweight fight, Albuquerque’s John Dodson stunned Jaron Grant with a left hand, then floored him seconds later with a left uppercut in defeating his taller, more experienced opponent by first-round knockout.
Dodson is 2-0. Grant, a former BKFC interim champion, is 5-2.
In an upset of sorts, heavyweight Josh Watson KO’d former Carolina Panther and Dallas Cowboy Greg Hardy Jr. in the second round with a powerful left hook. The end came at 38 seconds of the second.
Albuquerque’s Jayme Hinshaw did what Charisa Sigala’s previous five bare-knuckle opponents hadn’t done: stop the Californian short of the prescribed distance. And Hinshaw did it in just 38 seconds of the first round, dropping Sigala with a right hand after staggering her seconds earlier.
Sigala suffered an ankle injury, possibly a dislocation, as she went to ground.
Eric Dodson (2-0), John’s hard-punching younger brother, brutalized Belen’s Gene Perez (0-1) in scoring a first-round TKO. Dodson floored Perez 12 seconds into the fight, again 28 seconds later, then at the 1:32 mark, putting a stop to the slaughter.
Never having turned pro in MMA and not having fought in the cage since 2018, Dodson said he’s all in for bare-knuckle and BKFC.
“Just knowing that I do have a home in the BKFC kind of helps me stay fit, stay active and stay motivated,” he said.
Both of his BKFC fights have been in the Albuquerque area, but he said he’s willing and eager to fight wherever the organization promotes.
“They put fights on in Thailand, they put fights on in London,” he said, “so if I could get a fight out of the country that would be fantastic, just to show what I can do.”
In a fight between two former Albuquerque residents, Kevin Croom knocked out Chevvy Bridges in the first round with a picture-perfect right hand.
Croom, who now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, and Bridges, who lives in Oklahoma City, trained in the same Albuquerque gym at one time but didn’t know each other well. It was Croom’s bare-knuckle debut. Bridges is 1-1.
OTHER PRELIMS: Belen’s Derek Perez, Gene’s brother, has a combined 6-31-1 record in boxing and MMA.
In bare-knuckle, he may have found his combat-sports calling. Perez defeated Anthony Sanchez of Midland, Texas by unanimous decision in the night’s opening bout.
Both fighters landed numerous clean shots over the course of five exhausting rounds,, but Perez’s had far more effect. The New Mexican scored a knockdown in the second round.
The judges scored if 49-45, 49-45 and 50-44.
It was the pro debut for both fighters.
Albuquerque’s Nick Gonzales made quick work of Sito Navarro, flooring the Massachusetts fighter twice en route to a victory by TKO in 41 seconds of the first round.
Navarro was attended by medical personnel in the ring for several minutes afterward, then was carried out of the arena on a stretcher.
