Monday Morning Hangover

The 2011 season of Friday Night Fights debuted on ESPN2 Friday night with a co-main event featuring two highly touted prospects pitted against two brothers.  In the first fight Demetrius Andrade earned a rather easy unanimous decision over Alberto Herrera with scores of 79-73 and 80-72 (x2).  Andrade was an Olympian in 2008 and all signs point to 2011 being his coming out party.  I would have liked to see Andrade polish off Herrera going into the 7th or 8th rounds but Herrera was a game challenger and I suppose the trend in boxing nowadays is to go the distance if it means not taking a huge risk.


In the final televised bout of the evening Mauricio Herrera earned a tough unanimous decision against another highly regarded prospect in Ruslan Provodnikov with scores of 115-113 and 116-112 (x2).  I personally scored this fight a draw and would not have been surprised if the scores swung the other way.  It was a very entertaining fight with Provodnikov digging to Herrera's body and Herrera responding with swift, stinging shots to Provodnikov's head.  Both fighters looked like the hell they had just endured when the final bell rang.  Again, I would have liked for one fighter to take control and end the fight early but both fighters were giving it all they had and both refused to go down. 
ESPN has taken more of an interest in boxing with 4 or 5 bouts on ESPN3.com in the latter part of 2010.  With these opening bouts ESPN appears to be on the front line of producing good boxing matches in 2011.