Cancio stuns Machado, Davis rolls Ruiz

 (Photo: Tom Hogan-Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions)

The boxing challenge looked to have two junior lightweight champions that eventually would be forced to meet in what a generous person would call a showcase bout and what a cynical one would describe as a squash match.

Quickly after WBA champion Gervonta Davis crushed Hugo Ruiz like a 7up can in breaking his nose and finishing him in one round on Showtime, that gave me time to flip to DAZN and WBA minor champion Alberto Machado's showcase against Andrew Cancio.
It looked that Machado was on his way to a one round evening as well after dropping Cancio about 25 seconds after I changed the stream.
The difference was Cancio got up, began to fight back and three rounds later, the early leader for the upset of the year was in the books as Cancio scored three knockdowns with body shots and battered a suddenly disinterested Machado before the fight was stopped.
The new champion will likely be targeted by several in the division thinking that he is an easy mark, but despite his average record, Cancio may not appear to be a long term stock to buy, but once again, the rule comes up that being thrown in tough and accumulating a few losses isn't always a bad thing before the big time comes calling.

Rey Vargas was knocked down in the second round by Franklin Manzanilla and looked vulnerable to the Salidoesque tactics of the challenger.
Those tactics soon would backfire with two different point reductions that canceled out the knockdowns over the course of the fight and Vargas did what he does-control from the outside and delivered a solid, but unspectacular effort to win going away by unanimous decision to retain his WBC junior featherweight title.
I had Vargas winning 117-111, which was pretty close to the official score.
I have hope that the winner of the WBA-IBF unification fight at the weight between Daniel Roman and T.J Doheny on DAZN could be convinced to unify further against Vargas, who isn't proving a lot with his defenses against lesser contenders.

Joseph Diaz dominated neighborhood rival and childhood friend Charles Huerta in winning every round on my round and winning an easy unanimous decision.
Huerta did his best, but this is the difference between a world-class competitor and an average ten round fighter.

On Showtime, the main event did see Gervonta Davis do what you expect someone of his talent to do when facing an undermanned, outgunned late substitute when he smacked Hugo Ruiz around for a round before blowing him out like a baseball bat going through the bottom of a paper cup.
The problem is that Ruiz was the first fight in ten months for Davis after fighting just once last year and doesn't appear to have any peers in his division capable of giving him a hard fight other than WBC champ Miguel Berchelt, who is not with PBC.
Davis could move to lightweight after trouble making weight for Ruiz, but the picture isn't any better there with WBA/WBO lightweight champ Vasyl Lomachenko and IBF champ Richard Commey having agreements to fight on ESPN through their promoters.
WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia would be a very attractive fight and one easy to make, depending on the outcome of Garcia's fight with Errol Spence next month.
Other than Garcia, I just don't see Davis having a fight to be excited about for quite a while.

Lightweight Javier Fortuna slogged his way to a unanimous decision win over Sharif Bogere in a sloppy mix of styles that could be considered ill-advised matchmaking.
Fortuna did score a borderline knockdown in the sixth, but the rest of the bout had so much headbutting, wrestling and grappling that I expected Mr.Wrestling II to kneelift both these guys out of the ring.
My card agreed with all three judges 96-93 Fortuna.

Erickson Lubin showed his power in driving former junior middleweight champion (albeit six years ago and lost in his first defense to the long forgotten Carlos Molina) Ishe Smith into retirement with four knockdowns in three rounds before the fight was stopped in the corner after the third.
The intrigue here was could Lubin stop the never before stopped Smith before Smith tested the china chin of Lubin.
Lubin landed first and showed the huge power that he possesses in crushing Smith as never before.
Lubin reminds me a lot of former junior middleweight and middleweight champion and 2019 Hall of Fame Inductee Julian Jackson.
Few in the game had the power of Jackson (Lubin) and Jackson (Lubin) can take anyone out that they hit squarely and conversely anyone that hits them (Jackson/Lubin) has the ability to take them out with chins that describing as questionable would be a very positive assessment to say on anyone's part.
Erickson Lubin will continue to be almost mandatory watching because the ending will likely be exciting and unpredictable.

In the boxing challenge Ramon Malpica and I each scored nine points and remain tied at 29.