Using a brutal body attack and imposing his physical prowess, Canelo Alvarez easily brushed aside Callum Smith in San Antonio to win Smith's WBA super-middleweight title and add the WBC title that was left vacant by David Benavidez missing weight in his last planned title defense.
Alvarez broke Smith down, especially to the body and caused Smith to retreat throughout the fight as the taller man was not the more physical fighter.
Alvarez landed repeated uppercuts that busted Smith open and caused him to literally wince in the late rounds and Smith bravely survived to the final bell.
I scored Alvarez a 119-109 winner, giving Smith only the sixth round.
A dominant victory by Alvarez and by methodically eliminating the top fighter in the division, Alvarez has several fighters that he could face from as many as five weight divisions, so who knows who will be next to face him.
Some of these fights I like better than others, especially considering styles, but it'll be interesting to see who the next opponent is, considering that Alvarez can deal with any promoter that he wishes.
On Showtime from Uncasville, Connecticut, the Hamburglar rose his ugly head with an awful decision as Reymart Gaballo won an awful split decision for a minor tile over former IBF bantamweight champion Emmanuel Rodriguez.
It was not an exciting fight, but the heralded Gaballo didn't rise to expectations as Rodriguez just outboxed him and Gaballo didn't win a round until the second half of the fight on my card and even then only two rounds, as Rodriguez won 118-110 on my scorecard.
Just an awful decision.
On the undercard, welterweight Jaron Ennis collided heads with veteran Chris Van Heerden in round one with the fight being stopped due to a bad cut on Van Heerden.
Too bad as I was looking forward to see Ennis get some experience against a rugged warhorse that once went eight rounds with Errol Spence.
In the opener, bantamweight Gary Antonio Russell won a unanimous technical decision over former WBA champion Juan Carlos Payano, due to an accidental headbutt.
I haven't watched this one yet, so no comments on the Russell win...
From Spain, former middleweight champion Sergio Martinez continued his comeback with a ninth round stoppage of Jussi Koivula of Finland via cuts.
A Martinez right had cut Koivula in the eighth round and the fight was stopped in the corner.
Martinez led on my card 78-74, but he's clearly not at the world-class level and he is turning 46 in February.
Martinez can win fights of this type, but I am skeptical on his chances against even the back half of the top ten-fifteen contenders.
In boxing challenge action, I scored five points to Ramon Malpica's four to move my lead to 188-177.
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