Photo Gallery: Fernando Guerrero vs Ossie Duran

Fernando Guerrero (pictured left), one of the most exciting young fighters in the sport was back in action last Saturday night against Ossie Duran (right).

In front of his hometown fans at a cold Arthur W. Perdue Stadium in Salisbury, Maryland, the 23 year old battled it out with the tough veteran from Ghana over 10 closely contested rounds.

Photographer Cheryl Nemazie was ringside to capture all the action.

Fernando Guerrero vs Ossie Duran

Photos © Cheryl Nemazie / cherylnemazie.com- Click on the images to enlarge. The two fighters pose for photographers at the Thursday pre-fight press conference. Guerrero brought a 15-0 record into the bout, while Duran entered with a ledger of 23-7-2. Fans peer down from their seats at the walkway leading from the dressing rooms to the grass field - normally the domain of the Class A Delmarva Shoebirds baseball club - as they wait for the fighters to make their entrance. The hometown fighter acknowledges the near capacity crowd gathered at the 5,200 seat ballpark. Below - Referee Gary Camponeschi has the fighters touch gloves before the start of hostilities. Duran proved to be Guerrero's toughest test to date, extending the youngster the full 10 rounds in narrowly losing a majority decision. The scores were 97-93, 96-94 and 95-95. Guerrero proudly shows off his first piece of professional hardware - the NABO 160 pound belt. On the under-card, Fernando's brother Alex (pictured on the right in the first photo) made his second pro-start a winning one with a unanimous decision over Rodricka Ray in a 4 rounder. The two fighters previously met back in June with Guerrero taking a majority decision.

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Friday Night Fights Recap

By Lee Payton

Jr. Middleweight, David Lopez, used his southpaw stance and quicker hands to score a unanimous decision over hard man, Ossie Duran. It was a relatively uneventful fight because Lopez used smart footwork to handcuff his opponent, and never really strayed from the script. Duran turned it up slightly in the middle and late rounds, but it was not enough to overcome the technical difficulties he had in there.

The scores were 97-93, 96-94, 96-94.

DeMarcus "Chop Chop" Corley wore a Predator mask into the ring, but he would not get his prey on this night because of three complete hacks.

He was the aggressor from the outset, worked harder throughout, was clearly the more comfortable fighter in the ring and scored a clean knockdown in the 3rd round.

Despite this, the judges came up with 77-74, 77-74, 77-74, for his Puerto Rican opponent, the undefeated Hector Sanchez. I'm going to give Allan Perrault, Dereck Zazuetta, Dennis O'Connell the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just totally inept, and not corrupt.

Chop Chop won that fight.

Rookie Karl Dargan of Philadelphia, moved to 4-0 (2) to start things off. He's an athletic kid who was a good amateur, but the thing that caught my eye was the way he worked behind a dedicated left jab. When was the last time you saw a real young fighter pop a jab 40+ times a round? He's trained by Naazim Richardson, so he could become a very good fighter.

Oscar De La Hoya took some time to chat with Brian Kenny and Teddy Atlas about the announcement he plans on making next week. They seemed to think he was going to pull the plug on his career. I suspect he's going to stick around for just one more.

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