Sunday, June 26, 2016

Boxing Challenge-Thurman rallies past Porter,Joshua stops Breazeale

The boxing challenge saw R.L. Malpica and I each score three points over the weekend and make the total for the year 76-63.

The PBC made its debut on CBS and I thought it was a pretty strong one as Keith Thurman rallied late in the fight to earn a unanimous decision over Shawn Porter to retain his WBA welterweight title.

All three judges scored Thurman a 115-113 winner, which was identical to my score, in which Thurman won the final three rounds to earn the win on the TRS card.
Porter cut Thurman above the eye and then slowed in his attack and allowed Thurman to get back into the fight.
The bout was pretty action-friendly and I wouldn't be against an eventual rematch, but I'd like to see each man take another fight or two before a rematch.
I'd love to see Thurman unify vs WBC champ Danny Garcia (Both being with PBC, this should be easy enough to make) and Porter could have a mandated rematch if he could beat David Avenasayan and that to me looks like an excellent network-level card.
Thurman's win was less than popular with the live crowd and I have a theory on that.
Keith Thurman gives a lot of answers that appear programmed and some fans have a negative opinion of Thurman because of that.
He comes across as a bit plastic and when he wins a close fight, there is some blowback-Just a theory.

I was very impressed with junior middleweight Jarrett Hurd, who stopped Oscar Molina in the tenth to open the CBS card.
Hurd lost only one round on my card and set the tone in the first as he dropped Molina with an uppercut.
The stoppage seemed a bit premature for my taste, but Molina wasn't winning this bout anyway, so I wouldn't feel too bad about the end of the bout.
Hurd looks to be a promising prospect and I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

On Showtime-Anthony Joshua defended his IBF heavyweight title for the first time with a seventh-round knockout of a gutsy Dominic Breazeale.
Joshua hurt Breazeale in the second, but couldn't finish him off until the seventh, when he dropped the American twice before the end of the bout.
Breazeale was more competitive than I thought. but I had Joshua winning every round.
Joshua has the talented Joseph Parker of New Zealand as a mandatory contender, but it's unknown if Joshua will have an optional defense before a Parker bout.

The co-feature was not televised in the US, but was on the boxing challenge as George Groves defeated Martin Murray by unanimous decision to win the Yaqui Lopez award for most title shots without a win (just kidding), but more importantly, earn another title shot against one of the WBA champs at 168 as the WBA still is trying to clean their mess of multiple champions in each division up.
Reports were that it was a fun fight to watch, but I was unable to watch as of this writing...


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