Heather Hardy Beats Christina Fuentes In Last Dance At Roseland Ballroom
Photos by Sue Jaye Johnson
by Sarah Deming
NEW YORK–Goodbye, Roseland Ballroom!
We never went roller skating or disco dancing in your grand, faded gallery, and we can’t get tickets to Lady Gaga’s farewell shows, but you were a great place to watch boxing. Hopefully, Lost City: “the original, running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York” will come back from hiatus and tell us some sad stories.
Dibella Entertainment dubbed its final installment at Roseland “The Last Dance.” Promoted in association with 50 Cent’s SMS Promotions, Wednesday night’s show drew a packed crowd that included minor hip hop royalty and ubiquitous fight fan Rosie Perez. It was broadcast with tape delay on SNY.
In the main event, junior middleweight Boyd “Rainmaker” Melson improved to 14-1-1 (4 KOs) with a unanimous decision over Donald Ward, 6-3 (3 KOs) that saw Melson fade down the stretch due to an alleged arm injury. Melson’s philanthropic work for spinal cord research is more exciting than his boxing.
We were mostly there to see super bantamweight Heather Hardy, 7-0 (2 KOs), one of the hardest working woman in boxing. In addition to getting herself ready for the fight and taking care of her daughter, Annie, Hardy had been busy selling her usual allotment of 150 tickets. [[MORE]]
We caught up with Hardy a few weeks before the fight at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, where she works as a trainer in between her own workouts. It was eight in the morning, and she was already finished with her first round of clients.
Hardy’s daughter appeared at ringside: a small, freckly nine-year-old. Hardy took her hand, still wearing her red handwraps, and walked her through the streets of DUMBO to school. It was hard to keep up.
Hardy’s apartment burned down in 2012, right before her pro debut. She and Annie moved in with her mother. Then Hurricane Sandy filled her mother’s house with eight feet of water, so they were all homeless. Now Hardy, who is signed with promoter Lou Dibella, has a new apartment just a few blocks from Gleason’s Gym. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it, with what she saves on childcare and transportation.
As she watched her daughter disappear into her school, Hardy told me, “No one is as tough as me. I know what I’ve been through. A fight is just a fight.”
At Roseland, that was exactly what we got. Hardy’s opponent, Christina Fuentes of Laredo, Texas (2-4-3) exploded with aggression from the opening bell and seemed to hurt Hardy several times. Fuentes had heavy hands, but her conditioning wasn’t there, and Hardy managed to wrest control with her jab and combination punching.
Neither woman showed much defense in this all-action match that had none of the coy posing of some of the men’s stinkers. Hardy seemed to be rocked at the ends of many of the eight rounds, striding back to her corner defiantly. One judge saw the fight as 77-75 Fuentes, but the other two overruled with scores of 77-75 for Hardy, who deserved the split win.
Afterward, Lou Dibella announced, “If you have any doubt that women’s boxing belongs in the Olympics and belongs on national television, you just saw that it does.”
A lot of people left afterwards, a testament to Hardy’s box office appeal and, perhaps, their familiarity with the oeuvre of Boyd Melson.
In six-round action, Irish light heavyweight Joe Smith, Jr. 13-1 (11 KOs) outboxed Otis Griffin of Sacramento, 24-14-2. By the end of the fight, Smith’s white trunks were pink from Griffin’s blood. The judges scored it 59-55 and 60-54 (twice).
Michael Gbenga, who has a silent “g” and the odd record of 13-10 (13 KOs), held and headbutted his way through an ugly six-rounder against southpaw prospect Travis Peterkin, who got cut in round 4 from an unintentional butt. All three judges saw it as 60-53 for Peterkin.
One whole section of Roseland was occupied by the huge Port Chester cheering section for the undefeated Bryant “Pee Wee” Cruz, one of our favorite prospects. Pee Wee staggered Millville, New Jersey native Joshua Reyes (5-1) in the first round, and referee Sparkle Lee gave Reyes an eight count.
But Reyes came to fight and staged a rally over the next few rounds, peaking in the fifth, when he trapped Pee Wee against the ropes and hurt him with a right uppercut-left hook combination. The sixth was also Reyes’, and when the bell rang it was unclear if Pee Wee would stay undefeated. The scores of 59-54, 58-55 (twice) are deceptively lopsided. This was the fight of the night and a tough outing for Cruz.
Four four-round bouts opened the night. Somewhat over-billed as “the crown jewel of 50 Cent’s up-and-coming prospects” Ryan Martin, 2-0 (2 KOs) of Chattanooga won a shutout against Jose Del Valle of Corozal, Puerto Rico, 2-3-2.
New Yorkers Danny Gonzalez, 5-0 (3 KOs) and Ray Velez, 3-4 (1 KO) had the crowd screaming with their all-action welterweight brawl, fought entirely in a phone booth. Gonzalez had a slight but distinct edge in power and speed, and kept Velez against the ropes for much of the fight. So the majority draw came as a surprise. This was the second time we’ve seen Velez get a bit of a break from the judges.
Southpaw Christopher “Golden” Galliano had a hard introduction to the paid ranks when he lost his pro debut last year. The loss has since been ruled a no contest, and Galliano entered the ring at 1-0 against Virginia’s Travis McClaren, 1-3 (1 KO). Galliano hasn’t yet figured out how to translate the classy combination punching that won him national amateur titles into success in the pros, but we are rooting for him.
Long-armed lightweight Donte Strayhorn, 4-1, out of Cincinnati couldn't do much with Jose Gomez of Washington State, 3-5, who sported a sartorial mash-up of the Seattle Seahawks and the Mexican flag. Gomez was wily with the right hand counter but Strayhorn kept control with the jab and took this majority decision.