BOXING AT THE BREN CENTER : Baptist Drops Montana With Ninth-Round Flurry

At times, it seemed more like a concert than a boxing show as LBNT Pro Sport staged its first of a planned monthly series of fights at UCI’s Bren Center Wednesday night.

A three-piece band played for about an half hour before the fights, then between rounds and fights and during a lengthy intermission before the main event.

Some fighters taped to the beat during ring breaks and Gilbert Baptist even did aerobic kicks to the music during the introductions before the main event.

About only thing missing were rim shots when big punches were landed.

Baptist threw four big punches to knock out Willie Montana in the ninth round of the scheduled 10-round main event before about 700.

It was the sixth career knockout for Baptist (21-11), a junior middleweight from San Diego. Montana of Reno is 21-7.

Early in the fight, Montana’s aggressive style prevented Baptist from setting up to throw more than one punch at a time.

By the fifth round, Baptist was starting to put series of punches together and Montana was slowing his assault.

Baptist used a right and a left to put Montana on the floor late in the eighth. But Baptist hit Montana while he was down and lost a a point and the round.

Montana attacked to start the eighth and had Baptist pinned in the corner about a minute into the round. But Baptist landed two lefts out of the ropes to knock down Montana. Montana got up, but Baptist moved in, using two rights to end the fight at 1:37 of Round 9.

On the undercard:

Cash McCallum, a former kick boxing world champion, fought to a four-round majority draw in a four-round heavyweight bout.

McCallum (1-0-1) of Westminster lost, 38-37, on one card to Tony Willingham (3-3-1) of Los Angeles. But the other two cards had it, 37-37, 37-37.

McCallum scored a second-round knockdown with a right uppercut, but Willingham came back to knock McCallum down in the fourth round.

Shane Kaplan, a junior middleweight from Irvine, needed just 18 seconds to knock out Manuel Marmuria of Las Vegas. Kaplan (3-1, three knockouts) used a left to the body and two rights to the head to drop Marmuria, who was out cold in the ring for about three minutes afterwards.

Marmuria later regained his feet and walked out of the ring.

Luis Meja (4-1) of Irvine suffered his first loss, a four-round unanimous decision to Ernest Williamson (7-3) of Los Angeles in a junior middleweight bout.