We start with an upset that is likely second only to Sandor Martin's surprise win over Mikey Garcia as the upset of the year.
For almost five complete rounds, England's Kid Galahad was dominating his handpicked opponent for the first title defense of his IBF featherweight title in his hometown of Sheffield, England in Kiko Martinez, who entered the bout with many have the thought of Martinez being a shopworn fighter.
Things can change on a dime in boxing and when Martinez landed one right hand near the end of the fifth round that shocked everyone watching the fight by dropping Galahad to the floor, the time was-a-changin as Galahad barely beat the count and was almost carried to his corner by his team.
Martinez had to know this might be his only chance of victory considering how the rest of the fight had played out and as the two fighters moved to the center of the ring for the sixth round, the Spaniard gunned one more right hand that slammed into the champion's jaw sending him sailing to the floor where the fight was immediately stopped giving the aging Martinez the IBF title and his first win over a world-class opponent in close to eight years.
Martinez had lost to his better opponents during that time in losses to Carl Frampton, Scott Quigg, Leo Santa Cruz, Gary Russell, and most recently top British prospect Zelfa Barrett in February, and was looked as not only over the hill and undeserving of a title opportunity but a fighter that was being given one last payday as a gold watch for a solid career.
Instead, Martinez will get at least one more payday, if not more...
DAZN's evening main event from Anaheim, California, and Golden Boy gave the observers what they expected in a bruising battle between middleweights Jaime Munguia and Gabriel Rosado.
Munguia won the decision on the scorecards by a wide margin (winning by six, eight, and ten points) but it certainly wasn't an easy win ( I scored Munguia a winner at 118-110) because as almost always (Daniel Jacobs fight excepted) Rosado brings it to the ring.
Munguia landed combinations throughout the fight against the veteran, but never dropped or hurt Rosado and was unable to truly stop Rosado from coming forward.
Still, for all the aggression from Rosado, he wasn't able to land enough to keep the younger and faster Munguia from controlling the exchanges and that meant the difference in the fight.
Mungia called out Gennady Golovkin after the fight and assuming that GGG wins his December unification fight against Ryota Murata, that could be not only an easy fight to make but a fun one to watch.
As for Rosado, his usual effort likely keeps his name in circulation and he'll continue to get paid for game and gritty efforts, just not usually winning ones.
On Showtime, David Benavidez broke down a very game Kyrone Davis with his relentless storm of punches and forced the Davis corner to throw in the towel during round seven.
Davis took a tremendous amount of punishment from Benavidez, but never stopped trying and even landed a few right hands.
However, Benavidez overwhelmed Davis and when he started to crunch Davis to the body in the fifth and sixth rounds you could make an argument that Davis would have been best served by his corner to have ended the fight after the sixth round.
Benavidez is one of the two names from the PBC that are mentioned most prominently for the next opponent for Canelo Alvarez along with WBC middleweight champion Jermall Charlo and while I'd hope that it will be Benavidez facing Canelo ( or facing Charlo with the winner faces Canelo), I'm thinking it would be Charlo first.
I think Benavidez's size and punch rate can give Canelo many problems, while Charlo is likely to fight a similar fight to Caleb Plant and Billy Joe Saunders and meet a similar fate.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica scored four points to my three (Ramon called the Benavidez fight to end in a seventh-round KO) and cut my lead to 147-129.
No comments:
Post a Comment