Salinas TKOs Vargas in seven rounds

June 10, 2017 at 12:09a.m.

Youngstown boxer earns eighth win

CAMPBELL

Alejandro “Popo” Salinas gave his hometown crowd what they wanted Friday night.

The crowd at the St. Lucy’s Palermo Banquet Center yelled out chants of “Po-po! Po-po!” after he beat Jairo Fernandez Vargas by technical knockout.

For Salinas, a Youngstown native, the chants weren’t only because of the locale, but his nationality.

“It was a Puerto Rico versus Mexico thing. You could see the pride,” Salinas said. “We had some of that rivalry out here.”

Salinas (8-1, 8 KOs) earned the TKO against Vargas, the Mexican challenger from Richmond, Va., in the seventh. Popo staggered Vargas (6-3, 5 KOs) in the first with a hard right in the opening round to set the tone.

Vargas was cornered near his trainer in the second and took a series of blows from his host. In round four, Salinas ducked Vargas’ left and came back with a right to the face that got the crowd going. The fans could sense the end was near for Vargas — and wanted the hometown kid to end it — but Salinas said he blocked it out.

“I had to keep my patience the whole time,” Salinas said. “I had to keep the crowd out of my ears and focus.”

Two more rounds would pass before Salinas was on the cusp of finishing off Vargas.

Salinas caught the right side of Vargas’ face with a left to get him to stumble, then the winning fighter corraled Vargas to the ropes and hit him with a right and left hooks in succession.

Later, another right sent Vargas to the turnbuckle. Vargas began to slump a bit before standing up to try and finish the round. Another punishing right from Salinas led the referee to stop the fight at 2:29.

“I’ll go back to the drawing board again,” Salinas said. “I’ll keep working with my team and hopefully I can find a promoter.”

In other professional fights sponsored by Youngstown trainer Jack Loew, Lake Milton native Mike Weissman dropped his professional debut to Elyria’s Quwanda Williams, who won by major decision.

Cleveland fighter Jose Rodriguez scored a technical knockout against Chicago’s Lavalle Hadley. Because the event was running slightly behind schedule, the Salinas-Vargas bout was moved up ahead of co-main fight Jermaine Franklin and Dan Calhoun. That fight was not done by press time.

The five amateur fights leading up to the professionals featured a super heavyweight fight where cockiness may have got the better of Youngstown fighter Danny Infante. Infante was matched up with Butler, Pa.’s, Brian Mowry. When Mowry went body, Infante would sometimes back up and either shake his head or rub his stomach to indicate he wasn’t feeling the effects of the punches.

That worked for a round, but Mowry kept going body and body punches became face punches. Mowry won by technical knockout.

Youngstown’s Jacorian Dent took a split decision against Jack Ketchum. Akron’s Eric Miller won by unanimous decision vs. Hank Gaston of Youngstown as did Pittsburgh’s Rami Islamon against Youngstown’s Nate Dykes.

Kaleb Wagner knocked out hometown kid Jackson Behun. Youngstown’s Ryan Williams beat Cleveland’s Lah Ne Tu in a split decision.