Boring Boxing Weekend

A very soft weekend in the boxing challenge saw three less than scintillating encounters and nothing to be really excited about from any of the three winners, let alone the three losers.

Let's start with the Top Rank card on ESPN from Fresno where to be fair the last minute loss of the title defense of hometown hero Jose Ramirez took away some of the shine and energy from the crowd, but even considering that- the two fights that were shown and planned for the card anyway left a lot to be desired.

The new main event saw hyped welterweight Egid Kavaliaukas win a workmanlike, if not visually thrilling unanimous decision over veteran Juan Carlos Abreu.
"The Mean Machine" won a 96-94 decision on my scorecard, but struggled to avoid Abreu's jab and didn't look anywhere ready for a title shot against any champion, let alone one of the quality of Terence Crawford.
However, with the political issues, Kavaliaukas could very well receive that shot in the fall as there are few other options for the WBO titleholder.

The co-feature saw undefeated Andy Vences cruise to a clear, but unimpressive win over trialhorse Frank De Alba in a junior lightweight encounter.
Vences was a fighter that I was high on when I watched his early bouts but hasn't made the next step as he moves into a higher caliber of opponent.
I scored Vences a 99-91 winner.

And from beautiful Kazakhstan and another one of those wonderful WBA "title" bouts from the people that bring you three "champions" per division, former light heavyweight and cruiserweight champ Beibut Shumenov returned from a brief retirement caused by eye issues to defeat Hizni Altunkaya in what was a pretty ridiculous excuse for a "title" bout, when Altunkaya's corner stopped the contest at the end of round nine.
Altunkaya was floored in the first round by what appeared to be less than a strong body shot and as I watched on YouTube, I figured after that, it was going to be a short evening for this mismatch.
Instead, Altunkaya rose, ran and generally stunk the joint out for the next eight rounds.
Shumenov doesn't deserve roses for his win, as he generally plodded after Altunkaya, landing punches mainly due to the ineptness of his opponent and didn't do a thing to prove to any observer that he has anything left in the tank against reasonable competition, let alone championship level fighters.
Just awful.
Thanks, WBA- You make me want to return to the days of Orlin Norris, Alfonso Ratliff and S.T. Gordon and those good old days weren't all that good!
I know that you have the best looking title belts in the game, but that doesn't mean that three of them in each division needs to be handed out- especially to fighters that are not worthy of being world champions.

In the boxing challenge, I scored five points to Ramon Malpica's three over the weekend.
I earned two points for the two ESPN wins and one for Beibut Shumenov.
Ramon added two for Andy Vences victory one for the Shumenov win.
My overall lead extended to 112-86.