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The WBSS moved to their first semi-final in the super middleweight division with a sizable amount of interest in an all-UK faceoff with both the WBA title and a berth in the finals on the line as George Groves earned the biggest victory of his career with a unanimous decision over Chris Eubank. Jr.
The choice in this bout was one of the hardest for me to make in quite a while as both fighters had reasons to pick them and pick against them and despite my rooting for Groves through the years, I had concerns about him winning on the big stage and hesitantly selected Eubank.
I was happy to be wrong in this case as Groves used his jab to control the fight's tempo and distance, befuddling Eubank and leaving him frustrated and settling for wild shots that found air more often than Groves.
Eubank did hurt Groves in the final round after Groves suffered a separated shoulder (more on that soon) and showed signs of the power that made him a betting favorite, but Groves hung on and took a clear decision (117-111 on my card) and a trip to the finals.
The shoulder injury to Groves does throw a wrinkle into the tournament plans for the finals as it is unlikely to see Groves be ready to make a return to the ring by June 2nd on the planned date for the finals against next week's winner of the Callum Smith-Jurgen Braehmer tilt.
As for Eubank, he showed the same lack of discipline that he did in his only previous loss to Billy Joe Saunders and looked to be a fighter looking for his identity in the ring.
We move back across the Atlantic for five challenge bouts on two networks from PBC and yet another mostly disappointing evening.
PBC started with a two-fight show that ran way long since a scheduled squash match for talented prospect Carlos Balderas surprisingly lasted the four round distance and the result of that decision saw the PBC running competition against itself for a while.
The main event wasn't as bad as it could have been considering that it matched the continuing comeback of Devon Alexander against the usually excuse-filled performances from Victor Ortiz.
It was not only scheduled for 12 rds instead of the standard 10, I was shocked to see the WBC sanctioned this as a title eliminator since Alexander had won just once in his comeback and Ortiz hasn't had a win over a contender in years.
It was better than expected, mainly because despite being decisively outboxed and having his eye puffed, Alexander wasn't a banger in his prime and the sometimes soft Ortiz hung in there likely because he wasn't getting seriously hurt.
As the Showtime card started and this fight moved on, it appeared that the only question for the judges was the margin for Alexander as watchers prepared to move to Showtime.
I didn't have many questions as I saw Alexander a huge 118-110 winner, but it was time to bring out the Hamburglar as the cards were stunning at 115-113 for ORTIZ!? with two more at 114-114 for a majority decision draw and the early favorite for the awful decision of the year.I suppose it wouldn't be a Victor Ortiz fight without something odd happening and say what you will about Ortiz in the ring-the happenings are never dull when Ortiz is around.
The other fight was really bad as Caleb Plant handily (119-109 on my card) won an IBF title eliminator over trialhorse Porky Medina to near a shot against new IBF champion Caleb Truax and the world's first ever all-Caleb world championship fight.
The less said about this the better and Plant is deadly dull to watch.
The drawn-out card on Fox caused me to miss most of the curtain raiser on Showtime as Yordanis Ugas won yet another eliminator in the welterweight division (there were three on the day) this one of the IBF variety with a seventh-round knockout of Ray (missing any sugar) Robinson.
I saw the knockout but missed the first six rounds, so no scoring on the Ugas victory.
The second bout saw a rematch of a fun fight from last year as David Benavidez defended his WBC super middleweight belt for the first time against the man he defeated for the vacant title-Ronald Gavril.
Benavidez had won a narrow split decision in their first fight, had claimed he was ill for that fight and wanted an immediate rematch to remove all doubt.
The doubt was removed as Benavidez dominated on his way to a unanimous decision that saw Gavril win the final round on my scorecard to avoid being shutout (119-109).
The talented 21-year-old champion dominated Gavril with his jab and proved that there would be no need for a third encounter any time soon.
I have a feeling that this time next year that we might be discussing David Benavidez and Gilberto Ramirez in a title unification bout as the latest big fight that boxing fans will miss out on due to the issues with promoters and networks...
The main event was one that I wasn't really excited about as Danny Garcia returned to the ring for the first time in nearly a year against the shopworn Brandon Rios in yet another welterweight eliminator, the second of the evening for the WBC.
If they had half as many title defenses as eliminators, Keith Thurman's nickname wouldn't be used as a metaphor for how often he fights!
Rios, a former Zabbie winner, had been fed journeyman Aaron Herrera last June for his first win since 2015 to revive his name to be fed to someone in the future,
Garcia had a mixed bag for the evening- the good news is that he knocked Rios out with a strong right that saw Rios rise but had the fight ended by referee Kenny Bayliss in the ninth round.
I had Garcia ahead 79-73 (7-1 in rounds) entering round nine and despite the protest of Rios for the fight being stopped, Rios clearly dropped his left and invited the Garcia right that ended a long night from the PBC, so he can only blame himself for a loss that frankly should give him pause of getting out of the business.
Rios is dreadfully slow and having his best days at lightweight, Rios lacks any pop remotely resembling his power at lower divisions, the time may be right for him to consider walking away.
The bad news for Garcia?
Danny was hit far more than he should be by someone of Rios' speed and you cannot blame that all on rust.
Garcia, even in his wins, hasn't been the same fighter at 147 as he was at 140 and now he's beginning to get hit more often?
I thought Garcia won almost every round, but Rios scored enough to hold some interest and I wonder if Garcia has seen his best fights in the back window?
The evening wrapped with one of those pro wrestling style shouting matches that seem to follow the PBC almost every telecast and especially when you have any combination of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, and Garcia around.
These three constantly challenge each other for future matches, street fights, hot dog eating contests and whatever else floats their boat on that evening.
It's getting to the point that it's simply silly that these things constantly happen between the three and nothing seems to ever come of it.
It's tired, old and much of it seems to be poorly acted.
Here was a tweet of mine from last night about this situation and for the record-Thurman and Garcia are the first two named with Porter being the third.
PBC 147 problem-Three guys all roughly the same level,two of them with an over inflated opinion of their value and skills that aren't really interested in top fights. The 3rd will fight almost anyone, but is a hair less talented- None of them want any part of @ErrolSpenceJr— R.S (@ThoughtsofRS) February 18, 2018
In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 6-4 on the night and moved my overall lead to 22-18.
I scored two points each on wins by David Benavidez and Caleb Plant with one point wins from Danny Garcia and Yordanis Ugas.
Ramon added two points for Benavidez with one each from Plant and Garcia.
Hoping to have an episode of Fightheads this week on the podcast to talk about these fights and next weekend's fight in the World Boxing Super Series and finally a good card coming from HBO!!
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