Santiago Handles Marquez with Class Performance
By Moncayo Blackbull

DENVER (IB-June 28, 2009) - In the main event of Airtight Boxing Denver’s MVPs event, Juan Santiago took care of business by outclassing heavy handed Steve Marquez.

The pre-hype leading to this contest was whether Santiago would be able to withstand the power shots delivered by Marquez. Marquez has been known to lay-out opponents, out of his eight victories, six of them have come by knock out.

Santiago on the other hand was coming into this contest following a loss to Diego Magdaleno in Las Vegas. So the question was will Santiago fight with awareness and show respect to the power Marquez possesses. It did not take long for the sold out crowd to find out!

Marquez came out the box with vengeance going right at Santiago in an attempt to land his power shots. Santiago would not take the cautious and safe route as he decided to fight fire with fire. After a few heated exchanges of punches, Santiago lands a solid right hand to the chin of Marquez, a few punches later, Santiago hits Marquez with a nice “short” left hood that sends Marquez to the canvass.

Santiago continued as the aggressor as Marquez seemed to look for chance to land a bomb. The chance would never come and Santiago takes this fight with a dominating performance.

Santiago improves to 8-2-1 while Marquez sees his record go deeper into the negative at 8-14-1

In the co-main Manny Perez (14-4-1) did not have any problems against Lorenzo Estrada (3-14-1) as he outscored the game and straight forward moving Estrada.

You get the feeling Perez is taking whatever fight comes his way, in an effort to stay busy and keep the ring rust from materializing. Not a bad approach since, in this game you tend to get the call to fight on very short notice. Next time Perez’ phone rings you can bet he will be ready and willing.

Denver’s Corey Alarcon versus Colorado Springs Terry Butterbaugh was an intriguing one, and had a lot riding for each fighter’s boxing career.
With Alarcon, this was a must win if he was to have any chance of resurrecting his boxing career. Alarcon was coming off five straight losses and losing to a novice fighter would certainly halt any rebirth to his boxing career.

Butterbaugh on the other side of the ring saw opportunity in this contest, should he win, he joins the up and coming fighter in the state. The only thing he had to overcome was the experience factor Alarcon had over him.

The contest did not disappoint as both fighters fought with the desire to win. A back and forth punching frenzy for six rounds had the crowd on their feet.

Although the fight was close in action and full of excitement, the experience of Alarcon would prevail. Alarcon looked in better form with superior ring generalship while Butterbaugh fought with desperation and very sloppy at times.

Alarcon (13-14) defeats Butterbaugh (3-2-1)with a majority decision.

In other action, Welterweights -Tyler Poglin (2-5-0) stops Michael Lueras (2-7-0), Heavyweights - Tom Amarpan (1-0) TKO’s Mark Trumble (0-1), and Pablo Gomez (1-1) stops Nathan Aguilar (0-4) in the first round.

Promoter: Steve Mestas, Airtight Boxing, Event held at the Grand Palladium, Denver, CO

For your DVD of the fight contact Steve Mestas at Airtight Boxing 720.298.1954

Ring Girls: Shallana (holding the round #5 card) and Kayley Renee