Let's start with the final card of the evening with PBC putting together a pay per view from San Antonio, Texas, and a fight that has been reported to be quite an action-packed affair.
Editors Note: As of this writing, I have not seen any of the PPV card yet, so I'm just reporting the results. When I have a chance to see and score them, I'll come back and edit my scorecard with thoughts for posterity.
In the main event, Gervonta Davis took away Leo Santa Cruz's WBA junior lightweight title and kept his own minor title by a crunching sixth-round knockout that left Santa Cruz out cold for a period of time and will be a contender for knockout of the year.
The fight was noted to be fought on mostly even terms before the left uppercut (that I have seen!) that will threaten Alexander Povetkin's knockout of Dillian Whyte for the KO of the year.
Davis claims that he will keep both championships (Which I don't have an issue with if he can continue to make the weight), but in the past, the WBA has claimed that they will not allow a champion to hold two of their titles, but organizations in boxing tend to make these decisions on the fly and according to the fighter or promoters so who knows how the WBA will rule on this.
In the undercard matches.
Mario Barrios kept his minor title over Ryan Karl by 6th round knockout
Regis Prograis stopped Juan Heraldez in three rounds
Isaac Cruz knocked out Diego Magdaleno in the first round...
From London's television studio, Oleksander Usyk received what he was looking for from Derek Chisora- A good twelve round test as a heavyweight and moved to the future with a unanimous decision victory.
Chisora started well in the first few rounds and had his moments late, but Usyk rallied after the early stages and banked rounds to build a solid lead on the scorecards.
No knockdowns, although Usyk did wobble Chisora a bit near the end of the seventh round.
I scored Usyk a 116-112 winner, so the verdict was a fair one.
Usyk is the mandatory contender in the WBO for champion Anthony Joshua, but could take step aside money for Joshua's unification fight with Tyson Fury, or should he refuse to move away, he could fight for a vacated title from Joshua.
The co-feature saw a mild upset as George Kambosos won a split decision over former IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby in an IBF lightweight eliminator to earn a mandatory title shot next year against Teofimo Lopez.
The thoughts were as wide as the scorecards as experts from England (Selby) and Australia (Kambosos) were each puzzled by a split decision and complained about the judges not favoring their man.
I thought Kambosos landed the harder punches against the smoother Selby and deserved a close call- 115-113 on my scorecard.
On ESPN Plus from the Las Vegas bubble, Top Rank featured the "Monster" Naoya Inoue in his debut for the company, and Inoue shined as hoped with a one-punch knockout of tough Australian contender Jason Moloney.
Moloney fought on almost even terms for the first three rounds, but Inoue began to land well in the fourth and fifth before a left hook sent Moloney to the mat in round six.
Inoue's right hand ended the fight in the seventh with a KO that would have received far more attention had Gervonta Davis not scored his highlight-reel knockout later in the evening.
Inoue could face WBO champion John Riel Casimero next in a unification fight that was scheduled earlier this year before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an untelevised bout, former cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev made his heavyweight debut with a first-round KO of Sefer Sefari.
Gassiev scored an early knockdown with Seferi rising unsteadily and the referee stopping the fight.
In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 13-9 on the day and boosted my lead to 153-144.
No comments:
Post a Comment