First, we go back to Friday and to the Republic of Congo, which isn't exactly where you see championships decided every day for the filling of the WBC cruiserweight title, which had been vacant for over a year since Oleksandr Usyk gave up all four of his titles in the division to move to the heavyweight division.
The Congo was the choice in this once for home county favorite Ilunga Makabu and Makabu brought the championship with him as Makabu won a unanimous decision over Michal Cieslak.
Makabu knocked Cieslak down in the fourth but was knocked off balance from a Cieslak right hand in the fifth and saw his glove touch the canvas for a knockdown.
I scored Makabu a 115-111 winner (I watched a very weak video via YouTube) and Makabu will be a player in a very weak cruiserweight division currently that will have the winner of the finals of the WBSS between IBF champion Yunier Dorticos and Mairis Bredis in March.
PBC had the stage to themselves Saturday after the postponement of the Jose Ramirez-Viktor Postol card from China due to the CoronaVirus, but the card looked uninspired and delivered with two fights that were less than competitive from Shreveport, Louisiana.
In the main event, welterweight contender Yordenis Ugas won every round over Mike Dallas and forced the Dallas corner to stop the fight at the end of the seventh round.
This fight looked like a squash match when it was signed as Ugas is a solid top ten welterweight and his split decision loss to WBC champion Shawn Porter could have been decided in his favor, while Dallas hadn't fought in nearly three years and his last world-class opponent was Lucas Matthysse, who took Dallas out in one round in 2013!
It was as uncompetitive as I thought it would be and the only thing missing was a knockdown.
Hopefully, Ugas will fight someone better in his next outing.
The co-feature was a little better as lightweight prospect Michel Rivera stopped veteran Fidel Maldonado in the tenth and final round.
Rivera controlled the fight against the shorter and smaller Maldonado but didn't step up the pace for a stoppage until a stinging hurt Maldonado in the ninth to set up a final round knockdown and resulting in the fight being ended shortly after.
Rivera looks like a lightweight to keep tabs on and he looks even better as his win last year over Rene Tellez Giron is a strong one after Giron's surprising KO of former Olympian Carlos Balderas.
In the boxing challenge, I earned five points to Ramon Malpica's three to move into the challenge lead at 17-15 with the difference going to the early ending wins by Ugas and Rivera.
However, the fight of the night looked like your typical prospect match against an enhancement talent.
You know the drill, it's what is done by all managers and promoters as they guide their young prospect through the early stages against no-hopers, Gatorade bottles, and jello-jaws that are often from non-hotbeds for boxing such as West Virginia, Kentucky, etc to roll up spectacular wins.
Well, tonight was one of those rare nights where the prospect and management get a surprise.
Undefeated (5-0) middleweight Raymond Guajardo faced 5-3-3 Clay Collard from Utah in what looked to be one of the bouts that I described above.
Collard had fought formerly for Dana White's UFC and the fellows that try boxing after mixed martial arts training usually don't punch very hard, their boxing technique isn't great and they are often poor defensively, so this didn't look like an unusual bout.
The fight didn't take much time to start as the pair immediately started swapping leather and usually, it's the prospect scoring a knockdown in these spots, but instead, it was Collard scoring the knockdown.
It didn't seem like Guajardo was badly hurt after the first knockdown, but a second knockdown was scored by Collard and this time Guajardo was on his sea legs, but as Collard charged in, Guajardo lands a counter left hook to send Collard to the floor!
Collard rises and the pair exchange for the final minute of the round, with Collard earning a small edge.
Three knockdowns in the first round of a six-rounder with Collard winning the round 10-8.
I still had the feeling that Collard missed an opportunity when he was knocked down as Collard could have had a 10-7 round, which is quite a lead in a six-round fight.
Collard charged out in the second and backed Guajardo up, busted his nose causing some impressive bleeding and despite Guajardo scoring with his back along the ropes, Collard overwhelmed the 19-year-old and forced the referee to step in.
It was an exciting fight with one of those rare upsets that ends with the prospect losing to the normally mediocre fighter.
Collard says he is returning to MMA and Guajardo will now try to rebuild, which won't be easy.
A prospect can occasionally lose a decision early in their career at this level and bounce back as recently to two-time Olympic gold medalist Robeisy Ramirez will try to do after dropping a decision in his pro debut, but it's a bad sign when the prospect is stopped early.
Against that level of competition, prospects are facing fighters that are usually average punchers at best, if you cannot take their best, how do you expect to take the best punches as you move against better fighters?
Boxing is a crazy game.
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