It looked like it would be an early night for Raymond Ford. When that didn’t come to pass, it looked like it would be a night that ended in a late stoppage.
Instead, his Saturday night didn’t end until the bell rang to conclude the 10th and final round – but Ford at least got his win, five months removed from surrendering his 130-pound title to Nick Ball via split decision on June 1 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Squaring off against Puerto Rico’s Orlando Gonzalez in a meeting of southpaws, in support of the doubleheader featuring Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez at Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia, Ford authored knockdowns in the second and eighth rounds on his way to winning a dominant decision. One judge gave Gonzalez a single round and scored the fight 99-89, while the other two judges had Ford, 16-1-1 (8 KOs), prevailing 100-88.
Ford, hailing from Camden, New Jersey, just across the state border from Philadelphia, flashed his quicker hands from the start, and in the second round, a sudden right hook out of his southpaw stance dropped Gonzalez, 23-3 (13 KOs), on his rear along the ropes. A quick KO seemed forthcoming, but Gonzalez, clearly hurt, played defense to get out of the round. And to his credit, by the fourth and fifth, he was fighting back – if not terribly effectively.
In the seventh round, however, Ford broke through with another right hook that Gonzalez didn’t see coming, hurting him but not dropping him. An even better hook landed in the eighth, and this time Gonzalez went down, looking finished. Ford jumped on the ropes in celebration, but it wasn’t over – Gonzalez beat the count, and there was no time left on the clock for Ford to finish.
Gonzalez spent the last two rounds in survival mode, to Ford’s extreme frustration – to the point that Ford declined to touch gloves with Gonzalez when the final bell rang.
Also on the undercard, in a light heavyweight bout scheduled for 10 rounds, Manuel Gallegos proved too big a step up for Khalil “Big Steppa” Coe. The Mexican veteran Gallegos – fighting for the first time since a stoppage defeat to Diego Pacheco 16 months ago – scored four knockdowns en route to a ninth-round TKO to spoil Coe’s undefeated record.
The bout was close through four, but nothing Jersey City’s Coe, 9-1-1 (7 KOs), landed was hurting Gallegos, 21-2-1 (18 KOs). The opposite was not true. A left hook to the body dropped Coe in the fifth – though Big Steppa roared back defiantly after beating the count, thrilling the crowd by landing a series of right-hand bombs. But another knockdown followed in the seventh, then came one from a body shot in the eighth, and just seven seconds into Round 9, Gallegos sent Coe to a knee with a left hook and referee Eric Dali immediately waved off the contest.
Another fighter who, like Ford, suffered his first pro defeat on that June 1 card in Riyadh, middleweight Austin “Ammo” Williams, got back in the win column in violent fashion, boxing and banging his way to a fifth-round TKO over Gian Garrido. Williams, 17-1 (12 KOs), coming off an 11th-round stoppage against Hamzah Sheeraz, entered the ring to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” with a giant smile on his face, and Garrido, 11-2 (8 KOs), didn’t have the means to wipe it off. The Kevin Cunningham-trained southpaw Williams was in charge all the way, and in the fifth, he hurt “Double-G” repeatedly, snapping his head back along the ropes until ref Harvey Dock wisely stepped in at 1 minute and 4 seconds of the round.
Fighting on his second straight Boots Ennis undercard at the Wells Fargo Center, welterweight Ismail “The Chef” Muhammad improved to 6-0 (3 KOs) with a four-round unanimous decision win over durable “Baby Face” Nelson Morales. The Dominican Republic’s Morales dipped to 5-19 (2 KOs), though he has been stopped in only one of those 19 defeats. Morales came forward, made Muhammad work and even scored well to the body in the fourth round. Still, Philadelphia-based southpaw Muhammad was doing the better work most of the way, landing potent combinations and convincing all three judges to score the bout 40-36.
Junior lightweight Zaquin Moses, of Newark, New Jersey, enjoyed a successful pro debut, with Shakur Stevenson cheering him on from ringside, winning all four rounds on all three scorecards against the limited Michael Ruiz, who fell to 1-5. Moses, a 19-year-old southpaw, never had to worry much about what was coming back at him and was able to calmly march forward all bout. He hurt Ruiz with a right to the body in the third and with a left upstairs in the fourth that made him hold, but he wasn’t able to force a stoppage.
In a scheduled four-rounder to open the card, 19-year-old Philly junior featherweight prospect Dennis “The Quiet Storm” Thompson, 3-0 (2 KOs), had an easy time with Edgar “Torito” Ortiz, Jnr, 8-6-2 (4 KOs), dominating the action until it was stopped at 2 minutes and 59 seconds of the second round. The overmatched Ortiz offered little offense, and even though he didn’t appear overly hurt, he was covering up and not punching back as the second round wound down, prompting referee Dali to halt the fight just before the bell could ring.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.