Redkach, Cruz Brawl to Entertaining Brawl on PBC on FS1 Card; Dustin Pague Wins Boxing Debut

The crowd inside the Sands Event Center in Bethlehem, Penn. was treated to a ripsnorter of a main event where lightweights Ivan Redkach and Luis Cruz fought to a majority draw. Their wild brawl headlined another Premier Boxing Champions card on Fox Sports 1, truly personifying the “Toe-To-Toe Tuesdays” nickname.

Redkach (19-1-1, 15 KOs) found himself deep in a hole on the scorecards early when his Puerto Rican adversary dropped him with a sizzling left-right to the chin. Cruz boxed beautifully at the that point and began racking up almost all of the earlier rounds in the contest, but his success wasn’t eternal.

Redkach was much tougher than his foe likely expected and it wasn’t long before the Ukrainian-born Los Angelino battled back, busting up Cruz’s face and wearing him down. Midway through the eighth, Redkach dropped Luis with a perfect counter left, but Cruz was able to struggle back up to his feet. Redkach scored another knockdown with a few seconds remaining in the ninth, though the shot was more of a cuff behind the head.

Still, it was a pivotal moment in the fight as it scrambled the official scorecards and essentially took a win away from Cruz (22-4-1, 16 KOs). After the dust settled, one judge saw the fight for Redkach 94-93 while the second favored Cruz with the same score. The final official submitted a reasonable score of 94-94, resulting in a split draw.

The middleweight co-feature was thrilling as well but it was Immanuel Aleem from nearby Richmond who won a unanimous decision after eight. New Yorker Johnathan Cepeda gladly stood toe-to-toe with his foe, but in the latter stages of the duel, Cepeda (17-2, 15 KOs) was rocked several times though he was never taken off his feet. Still, as exciting as he made the affair, Cepeda gave away too many rounds and allowed Aleem (16-0, 9 KOs) to win a lopsided verdict via tallies of 79-73 on all three cards.

Junior Castillo (10-0, 9 KOs) edged Kyrone Davis (10-1, 4 KOs) in an exciting middleweight tussle between two unbeaten prospects that opened the FS1 telecast. Castillo scored a knockdown in the fourth when a left hook landed on his foe’s jaw and the Houstonian wound up winning unanimously with scores of 76-75, 77-74 and 78-73.

In an off-TV bout, former UFC fighter Dustin Pague won his pro boxing debut with a unanimous decision after four rounds against Rafael Davis. Pague won via margins of 39-37 on all three scorecards.