Hollywood, Florida was the scene, for some unknown reason, for the awaited return of Gennady Golovkin and although the opponent was weak in mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta, Golovkin's performance was not.
Golovkin knocked Szeremeta to the floor on four occasions (rounds one, two, four, and seven) and was seldom smacked in return before the fight was concluded with Szeremeta not being permitted to continue after the seventh round.
Golovkin did indeed look like the GGG of the past in retaining his IBF middleweight title and most of his reviews for the win were glowing, but the tough, but inept Szeremeta was in no way a top contender and he looked like a child yelling at a water hose to stop squirting him without moving to turn off the faucet against the jab and hooks fired at him by Golovkin.
For Golovkin, he showed that it's plausible that he may have been ill in his close decision victory over Sergey Dereyvanchenko and that he would have more than an average chance of defeating Canelo Alvarez, Demetrius Andrade, or any of the other rumored bouts for him in 2021.
As for Szeremeta, he is the latest in what is a growing list of uncompetitive IBF mandatory challengers in the sport.
The IBF may have the fairest manner of determining their mandatory contenders, as they qualify four fights and place the winners against each other to fight for the first and second spot in their rankings, with the winners facing off to be named the first or second contender.
The winners of those fights are supposed to fight each other for the mandatory spot, which basically gives a fighter three fights in a row where they are told who they are supposed to fight with all the promotional mess that comes with that.
Many fighters don't want to put up with that and fighters from around the world see this process as a way to move up the rankings, so they will participate.
If a fighter is supposed to fight in an elimination fight, a fighter many times advances up the rankings without fighting and that is how the IBF arrives at so many undeserving fighters in the mandatory position.
So the IBF does follow its own rules, which more often than not the WBA, WBC, and WBO do not, the problem is that the process is a flawed one.
The co-feature was an excellent fight in the super middleweight division with undefeated and untested fighters Ali Akhmedov and Carlos Gongora squared off and exchanged punches often over the twelve rounds.
Akhmedov got off to a strong start and rocked Gongora in the second and built a lead on the cards.
Gongora began to compose himself and turned the tide in the second half of the fight with several strong exchanges between the two fighters.
I had the fight even after ten, but Akhmedov put together a strong eleventh and led by one point on my scorecard entering the final round.
Akhmedov led on all three of the official cards as well and seemed to be the stronger fighter, but when the bell rang, Akhmedov immediately looked like a fighter with nothing left and Gongora went for broke against his exhausted opponent.
Two knockdowns later, Gongora had a come from behind shocker and should find himself in some if not all of the sanctioning bodies ratings.
This was the type of grinding battle that prospects need to step forward against top fifteen competition, but it's also a fight that takes a lot out of the winner and loser, so who knows what each fighter left in the ring in this one.
The other fight from Hollywood was a real snoozer as super middleweight contender John Ryder dominated, but didn't dazzle in winning all ten rounds against journeyman Michael Guy.
Ten rounds of not very much action and hopefully Ryder returns against better opponents in the future.
In a pay per view for some reason, former WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto Ramirez wore veteran Alfonso Lopez and then dropped him with one right hand in the tenth round to score the knockout.
I had Ramirez well ahead after nine rounds (88-83), but the aging Lopez landed occasionally and fought hard in defeat.
Ramirez, who might rank near the top of fighters that have done the most damage to their career alone, remains undefeated but has fought only two journeymen in the last two years in slipping down the light heavyweight ratings.
In addition, with his former promoter Top Rank promoting Artur Beterbiev with the WBC and IBF titles at 175 pounds, and the favorite to win the vacant WBO title in February in Joe Smith, Ramirez may be relegated to these types of fights because he may have no other options.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored six points on the evening.
I lead the boxing challenge 183-173.
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