CARTERET, N.J. – One of New Jersey’s most popular young fighters had to walk through fire to score his biggest win to date.
Gabriel Gerena brawled and, when needed, boxed his way to a majority decision win over tough-as-nails Kevin Castillo in a six-round junior welterweight fight on Sunday at the Performing Arts Center in Carteret, New Jersey.
One judge had the fight even at 57-57, while the other two scored it 58-56 in favor of Gerena, 8-1 (6 KOs), a fighter of Puerto Rican and Mexican heritage who is based in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Castillo, who is from Quito, Ecuador, but is now based in Miami, dropped to 5-2-1 (0 KOs) after losing his second straight fight.
Despite moving up in weight, Castillo got off to a confident start, landing his jab and switching stances frequently to find punching angles on Gerena, winning the first round. Gerena had a strong bounce-back round in the second, accepting that he would have to take some shots from Castillo in order to get to his midsection and wear him down. The gamble started to pay off as he landed big combinations to the body.
Castillo regrouped in the third, landing an uppercut as Gerena barged in – but without the power needed to make the sort of impression that Danny Gonzalez made last year when he upset Gerena by first-round TKO.
The fight devolved into a street brawl in the third, as both abandoned any pretense of boxing and settled on swinging wildly in close quarters. Gerena continued to find the pace he wanted in the fourth, pushing Castillo more than he wanted to be, taking uppercuts and right hands to land body shots of his own.
Early in the fifth round, Gerena hit the canvas from a punch that was ruled a low blow, leading to referee David Franciosi granting Gerena a respite. Whether the punch was low or not, Castillo felt he found something with the body shots, and he kept his target trained on the midsection, making Gerena wince whenever he landed left hooks to the ribs. Gerena recovered in time for a big statement to end the third round, knocking Castillo’s head back with a combo near the final bell.
With the finish line in sight, Gerena began to box for the first time in the fight, using some of the technique learned from head trainer Ahman Elliot to make his opponent miss and potshot from distance. Still, Castillo wouldn’t stop punching, and he found another left hook to the pit of the stomach to hurt Gerena before the final bell.
Gerena, 23, graduated last year from Rutgers Business School with a degree in Finance.
The fight was part of the Rising Star Promotions card headlined by the junior welterweight fight between Thomas Blumenfeld and Christopher Rodriguez. The card is being broadcasted live on DAZN.
Deeper on the undercard, Elvina White bounced back from her first pro loss, winning a four-round split decision over Brittany Ordonez. White, 6-1 (2 KOs), earned the win by scores of 39-37 on two cards, while the third judge had it 39-37 for Ordonez, who dropped to 5-6-3 (1 KO) after losing the junior lightweight bout.
White, a native of Villach, Austria, now based in Los Angeles, had women’s boxing great Seniesa Estrada in her corner but had her hands full with the nonstop aggression of Ordonez, 32, from San Antonio. White struggled to keep up with the pace by the second round, loading up with single shots to try and discourage her opponent. In the third round, she made the adjustment of being first with her jab, which kept Ordonez at bay and helped White land overhand rights. Ordonez continued to press forward, but without a left hook to follow her overhand rights, White had the escape route she needed to get off the ropes.
The White-Ordonez fight was the first of the night to make it to the second round.
Bruce Seldon Jnr, the son of the former WBA heavyweight titleholder of the same name, kept his undefeated record intact with a first-round stoppage of Eric Prieto in their four-round heavyweight fight.
The 30-year-old Seldon Jnr, who turned pro last June without any amateur experience, blitzed Prieto at the opening bell, firing power punches with both hands that rocked the 36-year-old from San Antonio repeatedly. Prieto finally went down from a left hook and beat the count, but referee Eric Dali thought better of it and stopped the fight at the 2-minute, 18-second mark.
Seldon, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, raised his record to 6-0 (5 KOs) with the win, while Prieto fell to 3-5 (2 KOs).
Kirc Bargamento brought the biggest crowd of the undercard, with dozens of supporters from his day job as a trainer at Wall Athletics making the trip to Carteret. A 30-year-old lightweight debutant from Bloomingdale, New Jersey, Bargamento finished off Freddie Adams at 1 minute, 35 seconds of the first round, dropping his southpaw opponent with a right hand for the 10-count.
Bargamento, who was born in Cebu City, Philippines, is a former New Jersey Golden Gloves novice champion.
In the opening bout of the night, Michael Boyle, 2-0 (2 KOs), finished off Jarell Sanders, 1-4 (1 KO), at 1 minute, 46 seconds of the first round in their scheduled four-round cruiserweight bout. Boyle, 30, hails from Yonkers, New York.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
