(Even though that's probably true, doesn't that line always seem pretentious?).
Let's start with the challenge and the most important fight of the evening (technically not the main event, but I digress) as a pretty solid scrap ensued as Jose Ramirez took a unanimous decision over Amir Imam to win the WBC junior welterweight title vacated by Terence Crawford.
The fight was close for the first half of the fight (I had Ramirez winning four of six rounds, but I could have seen 4-2 Imam just as easily), but Ramirez dominated the second half of the fight, badly swelling Imam's right eye and marching forward with aggression that overwhelmed Imam to the point of slowing Imam's ability to return fire.
I had Ramirez a 117-111 winner and despite a ridiculous scorecard that gave Ramirez every round, the decision was a clear-cut and fair one.
Ramirez is mandated to fight the WBC 'interim' champion Regis Prograis, who impressively dispatched Julius Indongo a few weeks back in his next fight, but Top Rank, who hosted Prograis and his promoter Lou DiBella last night, asked if Prograis would be willing to make a defense as the co-main event to a proposed Ramirez defense in his native Fresno, California, where Ramirez draws very impressive crowds and would be expected to do even better as a champion.
That makes sense to build exposure for Prograis and would give some buildup for a Ramirez-Prograis fight that style-wise might be a fight of the year level between the pair of undefeated bangers.
In the "our" co-feature highly rated light heavyweight Oleksandr Gvozdyk dominated Mehdi Amir but didn't impress as much as I expected in winning an interim title that only exists because the WBC allows its champion Adonis Stevenson to do as he pleases (as in no mandatory defenses since 2013).
I had Gvozdyk an easy 118-110 winner, but the victory not only lacked knockdowns, Gvozdyk didn't deliver the dazzling victory as expected.
The win does make Gvozdyk the mandatory contender for the winner of Stevenson's fight against Badou Jack in May, the speed of that fight occurring may be up to the WBC as Gvozdyk (Promoted by Top Rank) brings a lot of danger, but does not bring an excessively large purse for either Stevenson (PBC) or Jack (Mayweather Promotions) along with the promotional (and television) difficulties involved.
I'll believe Gvozdyk fights either (but especially Stevenson) fighter when they enter the ring on fight night.
The promoted "Main Event" that went onto finish the evening in a non-challenge fight saw Irish Olympian Michael Conlan demolish David Berna in two rounds.
Normally a fighter in his sixth fight (that isn't Vasyl Lomachenko) is a preliminary, but Top Rank is attempting to build the appeal to the Irish fan base in NYC of Conlan as he matures as a prospect.
I wouldn't have promoted Conlan as the main event, but as I watched the fight, someone on Twitter raised a great point-had Conlan been the prelim bout, half the crowd would have left and would have taken some of the energy away that wound up being present for the Ramirez-Imam fight.
Looking at things that way, I can see their point.
I watched the undercard on the ESPN app and it was an interesting three fight card (I think there was a fourth, but I took the ladies for Meadows custard before the broadcast started) with three fighters of interest going in and saw a shocking upset with a dose of just how hard it truly is to project a prospect's future-no matter their amateur pedigree.
Four years ago, when Ramon Malpica and I first were getting to know each other, we did a post called the six-round staredown and we picked "Can't Miss" and "Tired of Seeing" for each of the three major promotions.
When Top Rank came up, Ramon picked Felix Verdejo, while I picked Vasyl Lomachenko (don't give me too much credit, I picked Omar Figueroa for Golden Boy's Can't Miss) for the Arum bunch.
Fast forward four years and Verdejo has suffered through motorcycle accidents, injuries, a few disappointing performances along with a thirteen-month layoff before his return against Antonio Lozada.
Lozada had a solid (37-2 31 KO's) record but had never fought outside of Mexico and the once touted Verdejo, who in his rise was an HBO fighter against lesser opponents than Lozada in anticipation of being one of boxing's next stars was relegated to the Watch ESPN app on a stream.
Verdejo was competitive but was in a dogfight against the taller Lozada entering the final round.
I had Lozada leading by a point, but I was completely prepared for a close and arguable decision for Verdejo on the cards.
Verdejo was the house fighter, the bigger name and the guy that was marked for future appearances and I've seen this happen a thousand times, but on this night, Lozada was having none of that.
Lozada took no chances and did what so many fighters should do in similar situations-he took the pencils away from the judges and finished the fight as he dropped Verdejo and pummeled him until the referee was forced to stop the fight with 23 seconds to go.
It was disappointing for Verdejo and his promotion to drop his return bout, but what's really disappointing is more than just one bout.
One loss doesn't destroy a career and all too often in today's boxing, a loss is a bigger deal than it should be (call it the Mayweather Ramification), but it seems like all the issues outside of the ring have taken its tool on a young fighter with loads of ability and I'm very dubious of any idea that we'll ever see from Felix Verdejo what so many thought we would see in the ring.
The other two bouts saw promising junior lightweight Christopher Diaz win by a TKO in the fourth over Braulio Rodriguez, when Rodriguez separated his shoulder (Egads!) and former junior lightweight champ Jose Pedraza win a unanimous decision over Jose Rodriguez in an eight rounder in his first fight since losing his title to Gervonta Davis and first fight since signing with Top Rank.
I thought Diaz looked like he was ready to make his first leap against better competition and Pedraza looked sharp all things considered as well.
The stream call had a different announcing crew and I liked some of what I saw.
I've always been a big supporter of Crystina Poncher calling fights,she knows the sport and just needs the reps in the job to be a coming star and I liked Brian McIntyre's (trainer of Terence Crawford) analysis too as I hadn't been too familiar with him at the mic, but thought he was solid.
I wasn't as thrilled with Todd Grisham, but that could be my bias against former wrestling announcers, although my rap against Grisham (and Showtime's Mauro Ranallo) is that they seem to come into a broadcast with set jokes and stories that they are going to get into the broadcast no matter what and the artificial excitement that seems to always be a staple of the former McMahon bunch when they commentate sports that don't have a predetermined victor.
I'm still just not thrilled with the ESPN/Top Rank main crew.
Joe Tessitore is decent enough but like an average team, he plays to the level of the competition and with Mark Kriegel and Tim Bradley, he is limited in what he has to work with.
Bradley struggles to get his thoughts out quickly and he might be better used as a commentator in between fights or even rounds where he has a little bit of time to get his insights out.
Bradley says some interesting things but could thrive in a different role and especially the same for Kriegel, who was terrific in a roundtable with Don King and Bob Arum recalling their old war stories, but in a live fight environment is just not very good.
I'm not sure how Kriegel got into this position and had enough pull to push Teddy Atlas aside, but someone at the network or promotion must really be fond of him.
In the Boxing Challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored two points to move the total to 43-35.
Ramon scored two points for the Oleksandr Gvozdyk win, while I scored one each for wins by Gvozdyk and Jose Ramirez.
No comments:
Post a Comment