BRONX, NY (January 31, 2012) – Honors keep rolling in for Star Boxing’s world ranked Junior Middleweight Delvin Rodriguez, the latest being yesterday’s announcement by the Boxing Writers Association of America (“BWAA”) that last July 17th Star Boxing-promoted event between Rodriguez and Pawel Wolak, aired live on ESPN Friday Night Fights, had been selected as the BWAA Fight of the Year.
Their action-packed fight at the historic Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan ended in a majority draw. Rodriguez won the rematch on December 3rd, 2012, by way of a dominating and impressive 10-round unanimous decision (100-90, 98-92 and 98-91) at the fabled Madison Square Garden.
In addition to the BWAA, Rodriguez-Wolak 1 was also selected as Fight of the Year by numerous publications and websites including Sports Illustrated and Delvin was named Connecticut Fighter of the Year by the Connecticut Boxing Hall of Fame.
The BWAA Fight of the Year Award is named after legendary heavyweights, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Rodriguez-Wolak I joins some great past BWAA Fight of the Year winners such as
2002 — Micky Ward – Arturo Gatti
2004 — Marco Antonio Barrera-Erik Morales III
2005 — Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo I
2008 – Israel Vazquez – Rafael Marquez III
“I’m very proud of Delvin and would like to thank the BWAA for selecting our fight for this prestigious award,” commented Joe DeGuardia, founder and CEO of Star Boxing. “Delvin is clearly established as one of the best and most entertaining Junior Middleweights in the world. Boxing fans want to see more of Delvin and we hope HBO and Showtime are pushing some the top 154-pounders in the world to fight him. We’re open to any good offers up to and including a world title fight.”
Dominican Republic-native Rodriguez (26-5-3, 14 KOs), fighting out of Danbury, Connecticut, is rated No. 5 in the world by the World Boxing Council (“WBC”), World Boxing Association (“WBA”) and World Boxing Organization (“WBO”), as well as No. 7 by the International Boxing Federation (“IBF”), and No. 10 by The Ring magazine.
On February 10th, the 31-year-old Rodriguez will be honored among his family, friends and fans at Mohegan Sun Arena, by Star Boxing during its ESPN Friday Night Fights show, where he will receive the Connecticut Fighter of the Year award. The show at Mohegan Sun features undefeated 2008 U.S. Olympian Demetrius “Boo Boo” Andrade (15-0, 10 KOs) against former USBA junior middleweight champion Derek “Pooh” Ennis (23-3-1, 13 KOs) in a l battle for the vacant North American Boxing Organization (“NABO”) Junior Middleweight title.
Tickets are $75.00, $40.00 and $30.00 (plus $5.00 facility fee for all tickets) and are on sale now through Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster customers may log on to ticketmaster.com; call Ticketmaster’s national toll free Charge By Phone number 1.800.745.3000; or visit any Ticketmaster outlet. Tickets are also available at the Mohegan Sun Box Office, subject to availability, or by calling Star Boxing at 1.718.823.2000 and online via www.StarBoxing.com.
For more information about Delvin Rodriguez or Star Boxing’s Feb. 10 show go online to www.starboxing.com.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
