It was fitting that the second to last “Friday Night Fights” took place at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut, just down the road from ESPN’s headquarters, which is where Teddy and Saul did the “fight plan” for the evening’s main event. The feature bout was between a pair of lightweights as the undefeated prospect from Puerto Rico, Reynaldo Ojeda, squared off against Monty Meza Clay in a scheduled 10rounder.
Clay (36-4, 22KOs), who stands 5’2”, had a 5 inch height disadvantage in the fight, but he spent the first round coming forward and keeping Ojeda on his back foot. The problem for Clay in the first round was his inability to cut the ring off and get off some meaningful shots.
Ojeda (17-0, 9KOs) was sharpshooting early on, but he was very sloppy and continued to push down the head of his opponent. Clay managed to land some decent shots, none better than the wildly thrown right hand he landed at the close of round 2.
It was hard for Ojeda to box because Clay was wildly relentless and came forward with little grace, making it seem as though Ojeda was desperately backing up or even running at times. But Ojeda was trying to maintain his game plan against a fighter determined to make him uncomfortable, so the lack of grace can be forgiven to a degree. Ojeda was still landing hard shots with his feet briefly set.
There was some decent action at the close of round 3, but Ojeda was effective at his distance and created angles against his opponent that couldn’t seem to make use of his aggressive pursuit. Still, the round was close due to the wasted effort of Clay that sometimes paid off for a moment—it was kind of like a guy in an air machine that blows dollar bills, there is no technique but eventually you catch a couple with meaningless effort.
Clay was just unable to cut the ring off and it was a shame because he had his right hand in position to do some damage, but was never in position to set his feet and make it count. Ojeda was running a bit at times, but he was boxing well for the most part. It was smart movement with desperation in between.
Ojeda hurt Clay in the 5th round with a hard right hand to the head and made him pay for standing still and making himself a target. Ojeda was sitting on his punches and throwing them from the power depth, not loading up dramatically, but enough to let his opponent feel the power in his hands. He wasn’t ignoring the body, either, but he could’ve done more.
The rounds started to look pretty similar as Clay would pursuit wildly and Ojeda would box and try to stick to the game plan by any means possible, even if he had to go on his bike for a bit. But at least Ojeda would catch Clay with meaningful shots coming in and even sat down on one or two big time punches per round that would land hard on his opponent’s chin.
It was hard to tell if Clay was desperate to land the knockout punch he needed in the 12th in order to win the fight or if he was just using the same clumsy and careless effort he utilized the entire fight. He continued to chase Ojeda down in the final round, but he failed to catch and capitalize, much like he’d failed throughout the fight.
The fight went the distance and the judges gave Ojeda the clear unanimous decision victory with the scores of 99-91 twice and 98-92. Clay ended up getting 3 rounds throughout 3 total judges’ scorecards, presumably based on activity in those given rounds.
Ojeda looked sharp at times but didn’t put it all together, although it was a tough opponent to do it against.
