adventure-ESPN faced off with Showtime with titles on the line in the main event on both networks.
ESPN's card featured Oscar Valdez defending his WBO featherweight title against himself as Scott Quigg weighed in three pounds overweight and could not win the title.
Valdez could have lost it though with a defeat that would cause his title to become vacant, but in a fight that was fun to watch, but felt like an anti-climax, Valdez won a unanimous decision to retain his title.
Give both fighters plenty of credit (in the ring), both fought gallantly through injuries as Quigg's nose was broken giving him a look of an NBA player wearing a mask to protect a broken nose and Valdez fought half the bout with a broken jaw that forced his corner to keep his mouthpiece in to avoid the pain of taking the gumshield in and out.
I scored Valdez a 116-113 winner (7-4-1 in rounds), which was a little closer than the scorecards.
The fight was action-filled, but the actions of Quigg (who I've always liked) and his camp in first missing weight that badly and then hamstringing Valdez/Top Rank/ESPN on terms to even allow the fight to happen at all, were less than honorable.
Quigg did fight through a stress fracture in his foot and to be fair that could have hurt his chances to make the weight, but Quigg was clearly the larger man in the bout.
Oscar Valdez rose a great deal in my eyes with this win as he overcame a size difference, dealt with outside the ring drama and dealt with a broken jaw and still managed to win the fight against a strong opponent.
It was a great fight that deserves a rematch, but I'm doubtful that we'll see it unless Valdez has no other options (which might be the case with the three other featherweight champs Gary Russell, Leo Santa Cruz and Lee Selby all being with PBC).
The co-feature saw Erick DeLeon battle to a majority draw with Andy Vences in a fight with two undefeated prospects.
I scored it 95-95, so I was more than fine with the decision.
Vences seemed a bit quicker, DeLeon threw the harder shots, a draw was good enough for me...
Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Mikey Garcia won his fourth divisional title via a unanimous decision over Sergey Lipinets to lift the IBF junior welterweight title in Texas.
Garcia wasn't as effective at the higher weight despite putting Lipinets on the floor in the seventh round and it was more workmanlike than spectacular in the victory.
I scored Garcia a 118-109 winner (10-2 with a knockdown), but in my opinion, Garcia would be better suited to return to 135, where not only is he more effective, but he has bigger fights there against Vasyl Lomachenko, Jorge Linares (rumors are flying that Lomachenko-Linares in May is close to getting signed!) or Robert Easter than at 140 where you are just beginning to see the titles filled from Terence Crawford's move up to 147.
There seem to be some fighters at junior welterweight that might develop into stars (Jose Ramirez and Regis Prograis seem to have the best chance of doing that or Amir Imam should he upset Ramirez next weekend), but they sure aren't there yet and other than collecting belts that he won't defend, I don't seem any real advantage to hanging around junior welterweight for Garcia, who has built his career on beating good fighters with flaws and has yet to face someone that might have an even chance of defeating him.
In Showtime's other bout, one of the worst decision's of 2017 was remedied as Kiryl Relikh shutout (on my card) Rances Barthelemy to win the vacant WBA junior welterweight title.
The two fought last year in a title eliminator that saw a decision so bad that the Hamburglar was out as Barthelemy took an awful decision.
The judges this time got it right in the mandated rematch as Rellikh dominated the fight against Barthelemy.
I'm not sure Relikh is a star in the making, but his walk forward style could make some fun fights at 140.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored four points on Saturday.
I received two points each from Mikey Garcia and Oscar Valdez, while Ramon earned two from Valdez and one each from Garcia and Kiryl Relikh.
I lead the challenge 41-33.
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