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I had a big weekend filled with things going on in and out of the sports world, so I'll be here catching up with everything over the next few days.
Not sure how much coverage I am going to do on the Ohio State win over Army, but if I have time to watch, I'll have a few notes.
The Boxing Challenge continued with a huge fight filled with garbage around it.
In the main event, Gennady Golovkin finally got his time on the main stage and retained his WBA/WBC/IBF middleweight titles after his fight with Canelo Alvarez was scored a draw.
I had Golovkin a 116-112 winner and most scores I've seen were similar, but my notes had two rounds as close so I could see a 114-114 draw as one judge scored.
The problem was the godawful 118-110 score for Alvarez, which was so bad that you cannot believe it.
Byrd's score was excused by the chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission as a "bad night", so despite a less than sterling track record-she'll be back in the future.
The biggest issue with last night, well behind the draw and Adelaide Byrd was the awful undercard, which featured three boring bouts that did nothing to attract new fans on an evening that gave new watchers a chance to become followers.
Oscar De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions so often get passes from many in the boxing media-I for one am tired of that.
De La Hoya used his position to duck Gennady Golovkin for years as promoter of Canelo Alvarez and then on a night where the fight everyone wanted to see delivered a good battle, De La Hoya gave them featherfisted Joseph Diaz, De La Hoya's cousin Diego and disappointing prospect Ryan Martin in a combined 32 boring rounds that saw no knockdowns scored.
Diego De La Hoya's win over Randy Caballero looked better on paper than it turned out in the ring, which happens sometimes in boxing-they cannot all be winners, after all, but still, a promoter should be able to figure out that on the biggest stage that the sport had to offer, you need to put exciting fights together.
Instead, the promotion took the lazy way out, figuring that the pay-per-view buys were there anyway, so why bother to spend money on bigger fights?
The answer should have been this- If we want to save money and not pay for "bigger" fights, at least put together exciting fights.
Golden Boy did neither in a major failing.
The less I say about those fights the better, but the Diaz and De La Hoya unanimous decision wins gave Ramon Malpica and I each four boxing challenge points.
In Europe, two fights of interest were challenge features.
The WBO middleweight title (the only one not held by Gennady Golovkin) was defended by Billy Joe Saunders of England with a unanimous decision win over Willie Monroe Jr.
Monroe had been knocked out by Golovkin a few years back, so this was seen as a way for Saunders to look good.
I haven't watched it yet, so not sure about how he looked.
Two points for Ramon and me for the Saunders win.
The other bout was the beginning of the World Boxing Super Series tournament in the super middleweight division as second seed Callum Smith won a unanimous decision over Erik Skoglund.
Smith dominated the overmatched Skoglund as expected and dropped him in the eleventh round.
I scored Smith a 117-110 winner as Smith advances to fight the winner of Jurgen Brahmer and Rob Brant's fight next month.
Ramon scored two points for Smith's win compared to my one.
The Challenge stands at 129-115 in my favor.
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