In the main event, Angelo Leo gave away a few early rounds against late replacement Tramaine Williams, but through sheer accumulation, wore down the southpaw to win a wide unanimous decision to grab the WBO junior featherweight belt vacated by Emanuel Navarrete.
Williams boxed well early in winning three of the first four rounds on my scorecard (Leo a 117-111 winner there) before Leo's number of punches grabbed control of the fight and never allowed Williams to get back into contention.
Leo is a volume puncher that doesn't have a ton of power, but enough to gain a little respect from his opponent and the New Mexico native reminded me of another New Mexico product that was a staple of the original Top Rank Boxing series in Tommy Cordova.
Cordova was another fighter that plowed forward constantly, throwing tons of punches while doing so, and created great fights as well.
Cordova didn't fight in the era of four titles, so he never rose to that level, but Leo brings him to my mind.
Leo will likely face Stephen Fulton in his first defense as Fulton was the original fighter scheduled for the main event before testing positive for Covid-19 earlier in the week.
The middle fight was the least exciting as Ra'eese Aleem stopped Marcus Banks in the tenth round with Banks suffering a wrist or hand injury that forced an end to the fight.
Banks was a late replacement when Tramaine Williams was moved into the main event and faced Aleem for the second time after losing a lopsided decision in 2018.
This fight was just as wide as I gave Banks only one round of the completed nine and the ending of the fight saved Banks from punishment.
The fight was a WBA eliminator for one of their sixteen titles, so Aleem placed himself into a position to fight for one of those in the future with his dominant win.
The opener was a rematch of Joe George's controversial split decision win over Marcus Escudero on ShoBox last November that was a tremendous action battle.
Escudero deserved the first fight and he dominated the rematch for eight rounds with an impressive attack that overwhelmed George, leaving him unable to land effectively against Escudero's aggression.
And then. And then. (Note to country parody singer Ray Stevens) George caught a lunging Escudero with one left uppercut that sent Escudero crashing to the canvas on his back and when Escudero's head rebounded off the mat with a sickening thud, the fight was over despite a very game effort by the concussed Escudero to rise.
George isn't known as a puncher (his six knockouts entering this fight had been scored over fighters with losing records), so this could literally be the perfect punch at this optimum time, but it may have been a career-saving punch for the Houston native.
It'll be interesting to see what's next for George, who entered the fight without promotional ties to any of the top promoters.
Two other boxing notes.
I hadn't heard that Showtime had released Paulie Malignaggi as a color commentator a few days before this card.
Malignaggi had stated some controversial opinions in April on race relations in boxing and refused to apologize when Showtime asked him to do so.
From the fan perspective, Malignaggi will be missed.
I thought he was a very boring fighter during his days in the ring, but his commentary was insightful and paired with Al Bernstein, gave Showtime's broadcast the best two color commentators in the game.
Abner Mares replaced Malignaggi on short notice and didn't seem very comfortable in the role, although all things considered that's understandable.
Showtime will likely shop around for a replacement but in a game that has trouble finding strong commentators already, it'll take a lot of luck finding someone in the same league as Malignaggi.
Matchroom returned to the ring with a card from Eddie Hearn's estate in the U.K. and though I didn't place their main event in the boxing challenge, I should have done so as junior middleweights Sam Eggington and Ted Cheeseman ( I know Egg and Cheese) put on a tremendous battle that saw Cheeseman squeak out a deserved unanimous decision.
Filled with back and forth swings of momentum and each fighter hurt at various points in the fight, the fight screams for a second battle between the two.
In the boxing challenge, I scored four points to Ramon Malpica's two to move my lead to 77-69.
I took two points each from the wins by Angelo Leo and Ra'eese Aleem, while Ramon's two came from the win by Joe George.
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