43
Salinas, Toney score first pro wins
By Greg Gulas
CAMPBELL
When Youngstown’s Vic Toney scored a second-round TKO over Antonio Brown Saturday night at St. Lucy’s Palermo Center, South Side Boxing Club stablemate Alejandro “Popo” Salinas was idly standing by figuring a way to upstage his effort.
Salinas did exactly that as he needed just two minutes and 33 seconds of his fight against Chris Tanner at Jack Loew’s “The Beginning” show..
Salinas and Toney were two of seven local boxers posting victories Saturday in their professional debuts.
“It just goes to show what dedication and motivation can do for you,” Salinas said. “It was a great showing for all local boxers and a great effort by all of the fighters on the card.
“I caught him [Tanner] with and uppercut that he dove right in to while using a lot of body shots to set up that uppercut.”
While Salinas barely broke a sweat, Toney broke a good sweat after taking a year off to mend physically.
“I wanted to fight a slow fight and feel him out, so I set him up with my jabs and was able to put him away in the third round,” Toney said. “I wasn’t as confident as I should have been so it’s back to the drawing board, learn from this and then get ready for my next fight.”
Youngstown’s Wesley Triplett won his debut by scoring a unanimous decision over fellow heavyweight Brandon Spencer (2-7-1) of Augusta, Ga.
Triplett stunned Spencer with a shot to the face in the opening round and then floored him in the second round with another face shot.
Triplett said the goal was to catch him early, if possible.
“I wanted to take him out as fast as possible, but needed to use my jab in order to do that,” Triplett said. “Also, I wanted to stay off the ropes but when he did get me on the ropes I was able to catch my wind.
“I knew that he couldn’t hurt me there.”
In a 147-pound pairing, it took Lavell “Turtle” Hadley just 2:49 to register his initial pro victory.
Hadley knocked down Brandon Davis (0-3) of Van Wert with 11 seconds remaining in the opening round, calling attention to what he said earlier in the week that one punch could change the complexion of the fight.
“I said that I wanted to be the one to throw the punch that changed the fight, so my goal was to go after him right from the start,” Hadley said.
In a 140-pound match-up, Vinnie O’Neill of South Side Boxing Club scored a unanimous decision over Eric Palmer (4-6-3) of Pittsburgh.
In 144-pound action, Jonathan Gregory of Youngstown survived a second-round knockdown to score a fourth-round TKO (1:21) over DeLoren Gray-Jordan of Cleveland.