I'll write about the most disappointing detail from outside the ring later, but inside the ring, the action was acceptable, if not awesome.
In the main event, Welterweight Jamal James earned a unanimous decision over Thomas Dulorme for one of the seemingly endless WBA minor belts in Los Angeles.
Dulorme was his typical attacking self, but the 6'2 James managed to take control midway through the bout to pull away to the deserved decision by outboxing Dulorme from the outside.
James managed to be more effective with the change in tactics, but it did make the bout less exciting with fewer exchanges.
I scored James the winner 116-112.
The victory was the biggest of his career for James and did give him a minor belt, which is worthless other than to give him a certain status in the WBA and might (emphasis on might) give him an eventual chance at a bigger fight in the organization.
James is a solid fighter and is a lower end of the top ten that would be acceptable for a title shot when a champion needs a good opponent, but not a great one.
Still, something about James makes me that this is his ceiling and he won't be able to take the next step from top ten/twelve level to championship timber.
As for Dulorme, he will always be able to land these types of fights because he is an excellent gatekeeper in the division, and he'll always give his best effort, but he is a step below the contenders in the division.
David Morrell won another WBA minor belt with a unanimous decision win over Lennox Allen in the co-main event.
The win for Morrell was his third in as many pro bouts as the Cuban handled the twelve round distance well and showed different dimensions as a boxer that has some power as well.
I'm not sure why Morrell, who is far younger than most Cuban defectors at 22, is being pushed so quickly unless the aim is to develop someone to feed to the David Benavidez-Caleb Plant winner that PBC is apparently building towards.
Morrell's plenty talented and being a southpaw could be a fighter that few will want to take a risk against for a low reward.
As with Jamal James, Morrell adds another one of those WBA worthless belts to defend against soft opposition for the time being.
In the boxing challenge, I scored four points (2 for each win above) to Ramon Malpica's two (from David Morrell) to extend my lead to ten points at 81-71.
PBC announced their upcoming cards on Fox during the card and being kind, they look very weak in their main events.
Two title eliminators at welterweight on different shows look less than strong but could have ended with an anticipated match.
Former WBC and IBF champion Shawn Porter will face undefeated and thoroughly untested Sebastian Formella on August 22nd on one show while Yordenis Ugas battles Abel Ramos for another of the 12 WBA belts in September,
Porter defended his title in 2019 via a split decision over Ugas that many scored for Ugas (I scored it even at 114) and a rematch would be a fight that I could get behind.
Instead, we get Porter against Formella, who has fought no one that anyone could remotely call a contender) and Ugas against Abel Ramos, who is 0-2-1 against the best fighters he has fought in Maurice Hooker, Jamal James, and Ivan Baranchyk.
Ramos-Formella would be fine as a co-main event or an eliminator main event on FS1, but neither of the fights scheduled is appetizing.
Some of the blame for this goes to the sanctioning bodies involved, but don't tell me if PBC wanted to make Porter-Ugas instead that the alphabet boys involved wouldn't have re-evaluated.
However, neither of those two main events is as awful as the other card with Erislandy Lara defending one of the 12 WBA titles at junior middleweight Greg Vendetti.
Lara, who has become more fan-friendly as an action fighter as he ages, is saddled with Vendetti, a Massachusetts clubfighter that has two names that stick out on his record- a unanimous decision over Yoshihiro "Mr.Action" Kamegai that saw Kamegai retire after the loss and being blown out in two rounds by fringe contender Michel Soro.
This looks like a colossal mismatch and isn't worthy of the main event on national television.
PBC needs to do better.
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