Steve Forbes & Emmanuel Lartey engage early in their 10 round main event fight

From the very first Battle at the Boat in 1997, Brian Halquist Productions has been producing quality all-pro boxing events at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma. Their latest - the 96th in the longest running casino boxing series in the nation - came on June 7th and went down in front of a packed house in the casino's I-5 Showroom. Before the fights, American mega-celebrity Danny Bonaduce, who hosts his own morning show on Seattle's KZOK FM radio station, was introduced to the fans, coming out surrounded by a bevy of beauties. And then the fights started, with 7 professional bouts going down featuring fighters from around the NW and beyond.

The main event was a 10-round 145 lb catchweight fight that had former IBF Super Featherweight World Champion Steve "2 Pound" Forbes, who was born in Portland OR, taking on Brooklyn-based Ghanian fighter Emmanuel "Ice Cold" Lartey. The 38-year-old Forbes entered the ring not having fought since early 2013 but he certainly had the experience on Lartey, fighting professionally since 1996 with 47 bouts to his credit. Meanwhile 33-year-old Lartey was undefeated until his last two fights where he dropped two tough decisions and was looking to get back in the win column with this fight. Forbes looked good early, landing with combos while Lartey was content to counter. Lartey though got a knockdown in the 3rd round and as the rounds progressed started to find his range. After 10 rounds of action, the scores were 99-90, 98-91, 98-91, all for Lartey whose record moves to 16-2-1.

The Semi-Main Event was to be a 160 lb middleweight matchup but Tacoma's Cameron Sevilla-Rivera came in 5 pounds heavy and his Spokane-based opponent Daryl Gardner agreed to the heavier weight, taking part of Sevilla-Rivera's purse to do so. Hopefully it was worth it for Gardner as the hard-hitting Sevilla-Rivera came in with 3 straight first round KO's and made it a four-straight by backing Gardner into the corner and firing away until the referee stepped in to the end the fight at the 2:01 mark. The 22-year-old Sevilla-Rivera is now 4-0 with this latest win.

Like Sevilla-Rivera, Buckley WA's Jeremy McCleary has become a familiar figure to EQC fans, garnering 3 wins on 3 tries at the casino. For McCleary's fourth fight, he faced debuting pro Chris Wheaton, who took the bout on short notice. Wheaton gave McCleary a run for his money but McCleary did enough in the 3 judges eyes to win all 4 rounds, 40-36.

Toppenish WA Welterweight Marcelino Pineda hadn't fought in nearly a year and a half but still was able to get his fourth-straight stoppage as a pro by knocking down Olympia's Jared Teer twice and then getting the ref to wave off the fight on the third knockdown, with the official ending coming at 3:04 of the first round. Pineda is now 4-0, while Teer falls to 2-2.

Fight of the Night was the 4 round lightweight matchup between Arlington WA's Ricardo Maldonado and Texan Manuel Mendez. This was a close-fought, spirited affair between two gifted boxers that was a beauty to behold. Both fighters landed with big power shots and neither let up throughout the 12 minutes of action. In the end, it was ruled a majority decision win to Mendez 39-37, 39-37, 38-38 who now is 3-1-1 as pro, while Maldonado falls to 3-1.

Harrison "Wolverine" Bevens moved to 2-0 in his pro boxing foray by scoring a TKO stoppage over Oregonian Cole Milani at 2:19 of the first round.

In the opening bout, NW MMA veterans Mike "300" Hayes and Jared Torgeson fought in a heavyweight boxing matchup, going the distance in a crowd pleaser. Hayes, making his boxing debut, got the unanimous decision win 40-36, 39-37, 39-37.

Halquist Productions's next event at the Emerald Queen Casino is the all-pro MMA CageSport XXXI on July 19th, followed by Battle at the Boat 97 on August 23rd. Learn more at Halquistproductions.com.