Sunday, February 14, 2021

Boxing Challenge: Castano wins WBO Title, Diaz draws.

    In the most meaningful fight of the boxing weekend (Josh Warrington's surprising loss to Mauricio Lara may have closed the gap, but it wasn't expected to be important entering the weekend), Brian Castano dominated Patrick Teixeira and easily won a unanimous decision in Indio, California to take the WBO junior middleweight title.

I scored Castano an easy 119-110 winner and the tough but overmatched Teixeira barely survived the final round as Castano attempted to score the stoppage.

Castano's pressure suffocated the taller and longer champion, didn't allow him to use his extremely long reach, and left the Brazilian with nothing but heart by the end of the fight.

Castano is likely to take his newly won title into a four title unification against fellow PBC champion Jermell Charlo later this year in what should be a very intriguing battle.

Charlo was on social media before the fight pushing for a Castano win, which is fine considering that that's an easy fight to make promotionally, but his hashtag "Imtryintoavoidpolitics" makes me think this- I get why you want Castano to win, but you are only trying to avoid politics because the promotion you fight for is the least likely to work with anyone.

Charlo's brother Jermall is in the opposite position in the middleweight division where he needs to cross over to make big fights- Is he trying to avoid politics too?

In the main event, the IBF junior lightweight title will be vacant after champion Joseph Diaz missed weight, and with the title only available for challenger Shavkat Rakhimov, Diaz managed a late rally to pull out a majority decision draw.

Rakhimov built a large lead on the scorecards, but Diaz won the final four rounds on my card to salvage a 114-114 tally.

Two of the judges agreed with me with the other calling Diaz a slim victor at 115-113.

My guess is with the majority draw on the road and against a fighter that didn't hurt himself trying to make weight, the IBF will pit Rakhimov against the highest available contender to fill the championship.

As for Diaz, although the decision was just, his behavior since defeating Tevin Farmer to win the IBF title has been less than professional.

Refusing to fight the contractually obligated rematch for the agreed-upon rate, getting into social media battles with Farmer, and then missing weight for the Rakhimov fight makes me wonder how many people in boxing other than his long-time promoter in Golden Boy would have very much faith in Diaz's word.

Ronny Rios looked very strong in overpowering Oscar Negrete in a ten-round junior featherweight crossroads fight.

Negrete tried his best, but the naturally larger Rios ground Negrete down with his aggression and Rios looked as good as he has in years and could be nearing a possible title eliminator.

I scored Rios a 99-91 winner and for Negrete, he might be better served to return to the bantamweight division where he seems better-suited size-wise.


On ESPN, former IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey entered the ring for the first time since losing his title to Teofimo Lopez and looked to return to his old form in stopping Jackson Marinez in six rounds.

Commey took apart Marinez, who outboxed the raw prospect Rolando Romero in his previous fight but was robbed on the scorecards, and didn't allow Marinez to move around the ring.

Commey knocked Marinez down in the sixth and an argument could be made the fight could have been ended there, but Commey would not allow Marinez to benefit from the chance as he landed a punishing right hand that bounced Marinez off the ropes and on the floor for the immediate stoppage.

Commey can still be a championship contender, but a Lopez rematch is very unlikely and I doubt that Devon Haney, Gervonta Davis, or Ryan Garcia will risk a low-reward fight against someone with another promotion.

In the boxing challenge, I scored four points to Ramon Malpica's three over the weekend to move the total to 10-8.



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