Boxing Challenge: Rodriguez crowned, Thurman wins return

    The boxing challenge saw the return of a former unified world champion, a return from a world champion that never defends his title, a grudge match between the best two middleweights in Great Britain, and what may be the biggest news of all, a young prospect making a huge leap in competition winning a vacant world title to establish himself as a future star in boxing.

We start with that young star as Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez won a unanimous decision over former WBC junior bantamweight champion Carlos Cuadras to win the vacant WBC junior bantamweight title that was vacated by Juan Francisco Estrada as the organization decided to "promote" Estrada to their ridiculous "Franchise" champion after Estrada unified the WBC title with the WBA with his split decision win over Roman Gonzalez last year.

Forget about another potential self-created mess by the WBC with Estrada and Rodriguez down the road (similar to the current self-created WBC mess at lightweight between George Kambosos and Devin Haley), and concentrate on the talented Rodriguez, who jumped from junior flyweight over the flyweight division to take a title fight at 115 pounds against Cuadras, who was a top-six fighter in the division entering the fight, and had never fought longer than eight rounds.

Room must be made for Rodriguez now after a performance that saw him control the veteran Cuadras for the first two-thirds of the fight before Cuadras rallied late to make the bout closer on the scorecards.

Rodriguez knocked Cuadras down with a short uppercut in the third round for the fight's only knockdown although Cuadras wasn't seriously in danger of the fight being stopped.

Rodriguez spoke before the fight about vacating the title after he won it to return to the flyweight or junior flyweight division won the decision by scores of 117-110 (x 2) and 115-112 which was how I scored the fight.

Cardiff, Wales was the site for a UK-middleweight grudge match between Chris Eubank Jr and Liam Williams which lived up to the grudge portion as Eubank Jr scored four knockdowns (in the first, second, fourth, and eleventh rounds) and won a unanimous decision.

Eubank's knockdown never really dazed Williams and the knockdown in the eleventh was clearly a shove instead of a punch to drop Wiliams to the mat.

The fight was filled with dirty tactics and foul play from both fighters but the biggest and more fluid Eubank controlled the distance of the fight and the knockdowns caused him to win easily on the scorecards.

I had it closer than most with Eubank winning on my card 115-108.

The PBC pay per view's main event saw the return of former WBA and WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman, who cruised to an easy unanimous decision over Mario Barrios in Las Vegas.

Thurman looked good in his first fight since losing for the first time against Manny Pacquiao over two years ago.

Still, Thurman didn't seriously hurt a fighter that was knocked out by Gervonta Davis in his last fight and I'm still not positive that Thurman is a threat to either Errol Spence or Terence Crawford.

I gave Barrios one round as my scorecard had Thurman an easy 119-109 victor.

In challenge fights that I have not watched as of this writing-

Leo Santa Cruz Unanimous Decision over Keegan Carbajal

Luis Nery Split Decision over Carlos Castro

Lucas Santamaria Unanimous Decision over Abel Ramos

Boxing Challenge Standings

Vince Samano 19 Pts (7)

Ramon Malpica 18 Pts (7)

TRS 17 Pts (7)