Abdullah Mason (18-0, 16 KOs) proved to be too much for his super featherweight replacement opponent Carlos Ornelas (28-5, 15 kOs), stopping him in the sixth round in lightweight action scheduled for ten rounds on Saturday night in a Top Rank-promoted event at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
(Credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
At the end of the sixth round, referee Raul Caiz Jr. stopped the fight after looking over Ornelas, watching him walk during an exam by the ringside doctor. He looked fine, but his right eye had been cut in the sixth, and he’d already been knocked down twice previously by big left-hand shots from Mason.
Knockdown Drama
It was pointless to leave him out there to soak up punishment because he wasn’t going to be able to bail himself out of the enormous deficit that he was in by that point in the fight. Ornelas had lost every round but not for lack of trying. He was on the attack constantly, but he didn’t possess the power to hurt Mason.
Mason, who turned 21 for the fight, knocked Ornelas down in rounds 2, 4, and 6. Each time, Ornelas got up and fiercely attacked Abdullah, connecting with shots that would have been dangerous for him if he possessed any punching power. Top Rank had picked Ornelas as well, so he didn’t have any power to do to Mason what Yohan Vasquez did last November.
Despite not having the pop in his shots, Ornelas looked good, making Abdullah miss, hitting him with punches, and making him pay for loading up on his left hands. Mason was shooting for a knockout from the first round, and he was getting nailed by the clever Ornelas through the fight.
Ring IQ
You could see that Ornelas was the better schooled fighter with better ring IQ, but he didn’t have the huge power and the massive size that Mason had going for him. Mason is going to have problems in the future when he faces someone with more technical ability than him that has enough power to take advantage of his weak fiberglass chin because he’s vulnerable to headshots.
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