Boxing Challenge: Hamburglar arrives in Minneapolis

    The Saturday night card with three welterweight fights showed one thing- when it comes to boxing in loosely regulated states, nothing should surprise you.

In the main event, undefeated prospect Eimantas Stanionis was in the middle of a surprisingly salty battle with former WBA champion Luis Collazo in the fourth round when their heads collided.

When Collazo fell to the floor with a mild cut and was concussed, it didn't take much to see that this one was over.   

Had the fight lasted less than a minute longer, the ending would have moved to the scorecards but instead, the fight was ruled a no contest. 

That's too bad because even though that Stanionis was controlling the fight, Collazo was landing his share and going all out to make what he said was to be his final fight of a long career a good one.

Collazo stated that this was his final fight afterward, but this is boxing and that can change on a dime.

As for Stanionis, he appears to be ready to face top ten competition and considering the talent that PBC owns at welterweight that could come very soon.

The middle fight was supposed to be the coming-out party for two-time Olympian Gabriel Maestre for another WBA minor title.

Maestre's original opponent, another former Olympian Cody Crowley, dropped out due to Covid-19 and was replaced by Mykal Fox, who had lost in his most recent fight to Lucas Santamaria who fought in the opening fight of the televised portion of the card.

The 6'4 Fox was expected to be broken down by Maestre, a supposed big puncher, but it was Fox the scored the only knockdown of the fight when he connected with a straight left in the second round.

I had Fox a 118-109 winner (10-2 with a knockdown) and it seemed like a formality for the decision for Fox.

Then the decision was announced 114-113  (which had me thinking someone saw this even other than the knockdown),115-112 (uh oh), and then 117-110- All for Maestre, and as I watched and uttered a loud profanity, Cherie (who could care less about boxing) asked: "How do you watch this again and again?"

I don't know dear but this is the worst decision of the year and while the current heat is on judge Gloria Martinez's 117-110 score and on some racist tweets that she has made in the past, where the heat should be is on Martinez's husband Ricardo Rizzo-obvious conflict of interest and Marcos Villegas, Fox's unofficial reporter, reports that a WBA official stood in Maestre's corner.

The WBA is the oldest sanctioning body in boxing and it's also the worst of the four organizations.

They bring nothing of value other than the best title belt and while the other three all have their issues, none of them bring the sewage-like quality of the WBA.

I'm planning a post on the bad points on each of the sanctioning bodies and what can they do to fix them should they have the desire to along with why the WBA is truly the worst of them all.

In a dull opening match, the aforementioned Santamaria won a unanimous decision over former junior welterweight and welterweight champion Devon Alexander.

It was an awkward mix in styles but evenly matched over the first half of the fight before Santamaria controlled the final few rounds to win a boring affair 96-94 on my card.

Alexander's not a totally shot fighter, but he was never a puncher and he's lost that slickness that once made him a champion.

Now he just shuffles forward, throws pitty-pat shots that don't deter the opponent, and might be best suited to consider retirement.

In the boxing challenge, I scored three points to Ramon Malpica's one to extend my lead to 108-94 in the season standings.