(Montreal) In a spectacular fight, Quebecer Marie-Pier Houle had to settle for a draw against Mexican Karla Ramos Zamora in a 10-round super lightweight duel at the Cabaret du Casino de Montréal on Thursday evening.
Sylvain Leblanc returned a score of 96-94 in favor of Houle (10-1-2, 3 K.-O.) while Pasquale Procopio gave the opposite score for Zamora (11-10-2, 4 K.- O.). Marie-Josée Guérin delivered a score of 95-95.
In a press conference last week, Houle’s coach, Sébastien Gauthier, said that his protégé was preparing for a war. He was not wrong.
The first four rounds were not easy for the pugilist from Trois-Rivières, who suffered several good blows, both from the left and the right from Zamora.
Encouraged by the spectators who chanted “Marie” several times during the fight, Houle regained his strength from the fifth round and his defense became a little more watertight.
The 10th and final assault was like the rest of the fight; wild and very tight.
Zamora had some good moments at the start of the attack but Houle was able to touch her rival in the second half of the round.
In the semi-final of the evening, Derek Pomerleau, a middleweight from Mercier, needed only one round to sign a ninth victory in as many fights, and a seventh before the limit, against Leonel Castanon , a 28-year-old Mexican now living in Vancouver.
Pomerleau, a 24-year-old left-hander, sent his opponent to the canvas on three occasions and referee Steve St-Germain had no other choice than to end the unequal confrontation at 2:53 of the assault initial.
After the fight, Pomerleau took the microphone and announced his desire to face Patrice Volny, who recently defeated Steven Butler.
“I would like to share the ring with Patrice Volny,” Pomerleau repeated in the press scrum.
“He did really well against Steven Butler, once again I congratulate him, there is no animosity between me and Patrice. He’s a really good guy, but it’s still boxing and the goal is to move up. I want to face the best, and the next one, here in Canada, who is ranked ahead of me in boxrec, is him, and it bothers me a little to be at the bottom. I would like to face him,” added Pomerleau.
The request was well heard by Volny, present at the Casino, but it ended in refusal. At least not for the moment, he clarified.
“Go fight Derek, that’s not something I’m interested in. It’s not something that allows me to progress in my career either,” Volny told the journalists present.
Four other fights featured in this summer boxing evening – summer officially began on June 20 – from the Yvon Michel Group.
The most impressive performance of this part of the gala came from Montreal’s Ayoub Maanni who, in his first professional fight, defeated Poland’s Maciej Jedrzej Marciniak in just 56 seconds with a powerful left hook, in a duel scheduled for four rounds at light heavyweight.
Marciniak, who was also competing in his first professional fight, was so stunned that referee Yvon Goulet ended the fight without even initiating a count.
Sitting in a neutral corner of the ring, Marciniak needed several minutes and a doctor’s attention to regain his senses before leaving on his own.
Two of the three other fights went to the limit, including the one won by unanimous decision by Montrealer Reid Twohey (2-0-0, 0 KO) against Mexican Abraham Gomez, in the super-middleweight category. .
Twohey largely dominated the four rounds of the clash and fully deserved his victory by unanimous decision. Except that he was never able to knock out his 40-year-old rival, whose physical form is not necessarily exemplary and who has now only won 23 of his 70 career fights, including 42 losses.
We were treated to an identical scenario during the four-round fight between Montrealer Winner Bondo (2-0-0, 0 KO) and Oped Sepulveda (0-2-1), in the super-lightweight category, which Bondo easily defeated. won by unanimous decision against another Mexican, this one aged 19.
In the very first clash of the evening, Montreal’s Jean-Gardy François (4-0-1, 3 KOs) defeated Toronto’s Sherif Anim (3-1-0, 3 KOs) by knocked out of action at 2:13 of the first attack in a duel scheduled for six rounds at lightweight.
