Team Combat League’s Season 2 quarterfinals continued last Sunday with a doubleheader from 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, where, in the night’s opening leg, coach Herman Caicedo’s Miami Stealth earned a spot in the TCL semifinals with a 229-222 victory Benny Roman and Ryan O'Leary’s defending champion N.Y.C. Attitude. In the second match-up, the regular season league-leading Philly Smoke reasserted themselves as favorites to win it all this year by taking down the Las Vegas Hustle 229-223 in front of their hometown fans.
MIAMI STEALTH 229, NYC ATTITUDE 222
The Stealth sprinted out to the early lead by winning four of the first six fights and never relinquished it. New York brought Miami’s lead down to a single point in Round 13, after featherweight Kayla Yontef defeated Miami’s Katharina Lehner 10-9 to make the score 123-122. However, the powerful fists of Miami middleweight Yordan "El Diamante" Barrera crushed their comeback hopes by knocking out N.Y.C.’s Eslih Owusu in Round 14. The one-punch KO earned Barrera the night’s first star award.
“This feels excellent. I train very hard to do that, especially when my team needs it,” said Barrera. “I’m grateful to be here and thankful to the New York team for coming and competing so hard. I expected nothing less. Thank you to TCL. My teammates and I have trained hard in the gym together from day one and it feels like we are going to win it all.”
The second star of the night was Miami middleweight Raidel Rodriguez, who defeated New York’s Lasha Gurguliani in Rounds 6 and 19 by dual 10-9 margins. The third star was awarded to New York heavyweight Pryce Taylor for his two 10-9 victories over Nestor Santana in Round 8 and Gustavo Trujillo in Round 23.
New York welterweight and TCL Rookie of the Year and TCL Most Entertaining Fighter Award dual nominee Ryan Zempoaltecatl went 1-1 on the night, defeating Miami’s Orestes Velazquez 10-9 in Round 12 and losing 10-9 to veteran Claudio Marrero in Round 20, as did TCL Most Resilient Fighter Award nominee Yunieski Gonzalez, who defeated New York’s Tre'Vaughn Jones 10-9 in Round 18 and lost 10-9 to Atif Oberlton in Round 15.
Featherweight Rookie of the Year nominee Enrique Leon lost his only appearance 10-9 to Opeyemi Adeyemi in Round 1. TCL Most Resilient Fighter Award nominee featherweight former world champion “Queen” Ronica Jeffrey won her one appearance 10-9 over Tyler Schaefer in Round 10, while fellow nominee welterweight Melissa “Little Miss Tyson” St Vil was 0-2 against Miami’s star U.S. Olympian Ginny Fuchs.
Miami Rookie of the Year Award nominee welterweight Samantha Ginithan saw her undefeated TCL record drop to 8-1, 1 KO by losing 10-9 to New York’s Feifilimai Faiva in Round 5.
The Fight of the Night was awarded to the Round 3 lightweight brawl between New York’s Sherbek Rakhmatulloev and Miami’s Armando Rabi, who traded knockdowns during their three furious minutes of action, won by Rabi 9-8 for his mid-round comeback to put his team up 29-26.
“It helps to have a set team,” said happy Miami coach Herman Caicedo. “We’ve been together the whole year and I’ve been able to coach them. They know what to expect. I believe that’s an advantage. I feel fabulous and I’m happy to be here. TCL is a super exciting platform that gives anything boxing-related a run for its money. We’ll clean up mistakes we made today and we’re coming back to win the whole thing. We’re not here to just do well.”
PHILLY SMOKE 229, LAS VEGAS HUSTLE 223
Coach Bob Kane’s Philly Smoke ran off ten consecutive victories to begin the match and never looked back, conceding just four in-ring defeats all night. The final score was misleading because Philly elected to save their top fighters for the semifinals and accepted 10-7 decisions in the final two fights to tighten the score of what had been an absolute team domination throughout.
Coach Jeff Mayweather’s Las Vegas Hustle got a third-star performance from lightweight Estevan Partida for his free-swinging 10-9 victory over Avery Sparrow to grab his team’s first victory in Round 11. The Hustle’s TCL Most Valuable Fighter and Most Entertaining Fighter Award double-nominee and heavyweight powerhouse Patrick Mailata lost his Round 8 showdown against fellow fan-favorite Joey Dawejko of Philly.
Burgeoning welterweight Darian Castro of Las Vegas dropped his Round 4 showdown against Philly’s Isaiah Johnson, but rebounded to win his rematch against Johnson in Round 19. The Round 19 match was later voted the Fight of the Night.
Philly Smoke Steve Cunningham Jr. picked up the night’s second star award for his Rounds 6 and 18 victories over fellow “son of boxing royalty” Sharif Rahman. Philly featherweight Shera Mae Patricio was named first star for her 10-9 victories over Jamie Mitchell in a sensational Round 2 brawl and Melissa Odessa Parker in Round 10.
“It feels amazing just to be out here representing Philly,” said Patricio. “We put on a show, so we came to eat and sweep, let’s go!!! We got champions. We warriors. We bring it every time, so we are going all the way!”
