'THANKSGIVING FEAST' Three area fighters win contests

Southsiders Charlie Fagan and Durrell Richardson closed the event with wins.
By BOB ROTH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- Three of nine boxers from Jack Loew's Southside Boxing Club won bouts Wednesday at the second-annual 11-bout "Thanksgiving Feast" Wednesday at Krakusy Hall.
Charlie Fagan and Durrell Richardson closed the event with wins after their stablemates won only one of the previous six fights.
Three of those losses could have gone either way -- decisions against female middleweight Sandy Torres, veteran super-middleweight Darnell Boone and 81-pound Junior Olympian Juan Salinas.
Glen Dunning, the sixth-ranked 152-pound amateur in the nation, didn't show for his bout with Richardson.
Easy wins
Instead, Richardson fought Dunning's Akron Rubber City Boxing Club stablemate Steven Rolls.
Durrell, the nephew of former World Bantamweight champion Greg Richardson, dominated his four-round bout with Rolls, easily winning the decision.
A southpaw, Richardson scored repeatedly with left hand leads and right crosses, many of them power punches that hurt Rolls.
"After a five-month layoff, I thought I worked well with both hands," Richardson said. "This was a good warmup fight for the USA Championships in Akron next week."
Richardson, the 2002 147-pound national champion is 39-6 as an amateur and will give the Olympics a shot before turning pro.
Fagan, 6-2 as an amateur, won a three-round decision over Eric Jackson from Cleveland in a battle of 125 pounders.
Coming off his second amateur loss last weekend on a Cuyahoga Falls card, Fagan used good combinations to turn the fight around. With a dominating left jab, he took charge of the fight in the second round.
His two-fisted attack in the third round earned a standing eight count.
"The difference tonight was that I had a good energy level and used my jab well," Fagan said.
Ron Pezzuolo, a senior at Austintown Fitch, won a four-round decision over Cleveland's Demarlo Thomas in a 154-pound bout.
Pezzuolo, 2-1 as an amateur, used quick combinations and was very effective in taking the ring away from his opponent.
"To win, I knew in the early going that I had to take the fight to Thomas because he was very tough," Pezzuolo said.
Close losses
Torres lost a hard-fought decision to Cleveland's Angelia Gaston.
Boone lost to the more experienced Ken Porter from Akron, a six-time national champion.
Another unpopular decision came after cruiserweights Ron Johnson from Cleveland and Josh Harris from the Buckeye Elks fought.
Harris, a southpaw, used devastating power shots and seemed to be dominating, but the judges gave the decision to Johnson.
Three bouts failed to go the distance, with the shortest of the night belonging to Dan Ramun (2-1) from Austintown.
After a blistering attack from the opening bell against Larry Polling of McDonald, the referee stopped the contest with 38 seconds gone.
About Ramun who broke the nose of his opponent, trainer John Hobart said, "Dan is improving with every fight, using his jab well with good straight rights."