DETROIT, MI – Detroit’s new Darkside Boxing promotion took the boxing world by storm on the night of January 10th; the main event of a six-fight ticket featured a title bout between Lanardo Tyner and Angel Hernandez, for the vacant WBU Welterweight World Title.
Detroit-born Tyner came in as heavy favorite over Hernandez, who also managed to bring a small contingent of supporters with him to the historic Masonic Temple in Detroit.
From the early rounds, the fight was nothing to be expected, with Tyner doing good body work on Hernandez, but Hernandez readily holding his ground. Both fighters maintained good ring presence, and Tyner’s anticipated dominance faded early in the first round.
But for Hernandez, the crowd was decisively in the favor of his opponent. Three times during the ten-round battle, fans cheered, “Ty-ner. Ty-ner!” in attempt to rouse the expected winner into remission. The truth being, underdog Hernandez owned at least three or four rounds with constant battering and occasional heavy blows landed.
This isn’t to say Tyner didn’t land several hard punches himself. Tyner landed a knockdown blow in Round 1, but Hernandez was up before the count began, and his fight only seemed to begin there.
From that point, Tyner was unable to gain any type of ring dominance throughout the match, and his strongest approach came in the form of subtle body work on Hernandez. A fight, which after six rounds began to show signs of imminent knockout on either side — Hernandez was thoroughly expending himself with combinations and Tyner diligently “picking his spots” — both fighters were fatigued after five or six rounds.
There were massive defensive holes for both fighters, throughout the fight, yet neither of them capitalized, until the final round.
In a fight that seemed as if the underdog might win by one or two points, Lanardo Tyner did the impossible, and KO’d the resilient Hernandez with only a couple of seconds left in the tenth and final round, resulting in a massive cheer and uproar in Detroit’s Masonic Temple.
With the victory, Tyner becomes the reigning WBU Welterweight World Champion.
