NEW YORK ---  When it was over, Broadway Boxing impresario Lou DiBella leaned wearily over the ropes and shook his head as he muttered to a ringside reporter “Nothing is for sure.”

Moments earlier, a Dominican journeyman named Harrison Cuello had ingloriously knocked out Edgar Santana in the third round of Wednesday night’s main event at the Manhattan Center.

To say that the result was unexpected understates the case. Santana, the pride of Spanish Harlem, hadn’t lost in the ring since 2002, and he was facing an opponent who had lost three of his last six, but the Dominican southpaw presented stylistic problems from the outset.

Santana found himself in the center of the ring, attempting to cut the ring off as Cuello circled about him, but seemingly every time he thought he had, Cuello would wheel in his tracks, darting forward to catch Santana coming in with quick right-left combinations.

Even though Santana managed to block most of them, he seemed baffled by what he was seeing, and in the third round he attempted to turn it up a notch by moving toward his opponent. Cuello landed a left to the body and then a right to the midsection, which seemed to slow him just enough that Santana appeared to hang suspended before him when Cuello cut loose with a straight left.

Santana went down like he’d been shot. Although he struggled to his feet around the count of seven, his legs betrayed him, and referee Pete Santiago had to reach out and catch him to keep him from hitting the floor again. Officially, the end came at 2:09 of he round.

The loss snapped a 16-fight win streak for Santana (21-3), while the win was Cuello’s first since he was stopped in two by Randall Bailey in Key West back in January. (Cuello is now 13-5-2 lifetime, but 1-1 in the United States.)

“Edgar got caught right on the button,” said DiBella. “He never did figure out this kid’s style.

“Look, I love Edgar,” added DiBella. “I’ve got a lot invested in Edgar, but you can’t run successful club fights if you aren’t willing to take chances and put on competitive fights. Sometimes you’re going to be surprised.”

Cuello-Santana was a fight you’d probably have figured to go the distance, but even in its brevity it turned out to be the second-longest bout of the evening.

It takes a brave man to travel from Ohio to New York and show up in a boxing ring wearing bright pink trunks, so it probably would be better not to question Thomas Davis’ mettle, but that having been said, apparently two rounds with Jose Varela were enough for Davis. Between the second and what was supposed to be the third of their scheduled 8-rounder, Davis got up off his stool, calmly walked across the ring, and tapped Varela on the shoulder to announce that he had had enough.

Davis (11-5-2), whose previous claim to fame had been a first-round knockout of then-unbeaten Kendall Holt in Chicago three years ago, had been down once, officially, in the second, when Varela appeared to catch him off balance with a left to the chest, and again on what was ruled a slip by referee Tony Chiarantano. Varela, an Evangalista Cotto-trained Nicaraguan, had dominated both completed rounds, but the abrupt ending appeared to surprise even him.

For Varela (now 21-1) it was the fourth straight win since dropping a unanimous decision to Edison Miranda in Florida last year.

Unbeaten super-middleweight James McGirt Jr. (16-0) scored a stunning (and, for him, rare) first-round knockout when he rocked Arkansas opponent Delray Raines with a straight left to the jaw, and then put him down with his next punch, a short left, less than a minute into their scheduled 8-rounder. Raines managed to roll over, but could not regain his feet and was counted out by referee David Fields at 1:06 of the first. Raines fell to 9-3.

Jaidon Codrington, who was originally to have faced erstwhile super-middleweight contender Omar Sheika, instead found himself in a 6-round prelim with Las Vegas journeyman Carl Cockerham after the Palestinian, citing weight problems, withdrew less than a week before the fight.

Codrington had handled Cockerham pretty well in the first  round and was on his way to doing so in the second when the veteran rocked him in his tracks with a short counter right. Although clearly stunned, Codrington seemed to treat it as a wake-up call, and even as Cockerham tried to sieze his perceived advantage by jumping on him, Codrington interrupted the attack by landing a big left hook that proved to be the beginning of the end. When Codrington unleashed a barrage of a dozen or so unanswered (though not particularly lethal) punches, Fields moved in to stop it, somewhat precipitately, at 1:37 of the second. Codrington is now 16-1, Cockerham 12-14-3.

Omar Bell made short work of Henry Coyle, requiring just 29 seconds to end the battle of previously unbeaten middleweights. Bell (4-0), a Jamaican now living in Atlanta, hurt Coyle with a short right early on, and with the Irishman draped across the ropes landed another big right that separated him from his senses. With Coyle on the floor, Santiago waved it off without a count. Coyle, a former Irish national amateur champion, is now 2-1.

Either DiBella’s matchmakers miscalculated in seeking out an opponent for Luis Ruiz or somebody forgot to tell Bruce Burkhardt (like they forgot to tell Cuello) that he was there to lose.

The two in any case engaged in a crowd-pleasing four-round war that proved to be the most competitive bout of the evening. Ruiz (2-0, of Brooklyn) won a majority decision over Burkhardt (0-2), of Marysville, Michigan. Steve Weisfeld had it even at 38-38, while Kevin Morgan and Carlos Ortiz scored it 40-36 for Ruiz. The truth probably lay somewhere in between, but Burkhardt at the very least won a solid minute of every round.

“This place is becoming a lion’s den for prospects,” said DiBella after the show. “We had two knocked off tonight, and there could have been one or two more – Jaidon, for instance, was really hurt, but he came back to win. Santana’s fans are obviously going to be disappointed, but to me, tonight is what Broadway Boxing is all about.”

*   *   *

BROADWAY BOXING
MANHATTAN CENTER GRAND BALLROOM
NEW YORK CITY
JUNE 20, 2007

WELTERWEIGHTS: Harrison Cuello 140, Santo Domingo, D.R. KO’D Edgar Santana, 142, Manati, Puerto Rico (3)

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHTS: Jaidon Codrington, 170 1/2, Bridgeport, Conn. TKO’d Carl Cockerham, 166 1/2, Las Vegas, Nev. (2)

SUPER MIDDLEWEIGHTS: James McGirt, Jr. 164, Brentwood, N.Y. KO’d Delray Raines, 164 1/2, Paris, Ark. (1)

JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHTS: Jose Varela, 154, Cinandaga, Nicaragua TKO’d Thomas Davids,152 3/4, Tenn. (2)

Omar Bell, 153, Montego Bay, Jamaica TKO’d Henry Coyle, 155, Geesala, Mayo, Ireland (1)

Luis Ruiz, 148 1/2, Brooklyn, N.Y. dec. Bruce Burhhardt, 148 1/2, Marysville, Mich. (4)

M

Send questions and comments to: gkimball@boxingtalk.com