I thought Mikaela Mayer did enough to nose out Natasha Jones in their women's welterweight title fight and while it was close on my card (96-94), I thought Mayer was the clear winner as most of the rounds were decisively won by one side or the other.
I wrote about the surprising decision loss by Artem Dalakian of his WBA flyweight title to Seigo Yuri Akui and how I thought Dalakian's style of moving away hurt him as judges prefer aggressive fighters.
Sooner or later, most fighters that use this style eventually lose a fight that they deserve to win due to this factor, and Dalakian proved the rule.
Fighters like Dalakian usually make dull fights and it's not always accompanied by outrage when they lose but that still doesn't make it right.
All too often in these style matchups, the aggressive fighter receives undeserved points from judges for "coming forward" or "trying to make the fight", which isn't part of the judging criteria.
The commentators for the fight (Crystina Poncher and ladies' flyweight champion Seniesa Estrada) seemed as puzzled as I had been when hearing of the decision. However, there were observers on the net who had the fight closer than I did.
While talking about Poncher and Estrada, I found their observations of the card from Osaka to be quite interesting.
Pomcher has always been a favorite of mine as an underrated blow-by-blow voice that I hope to see given higher-profile fights for ESPN/Top Rank cards. Still, the revelation was Estrada, who offered several intriguing points during the Kenshiro Teraji-Carlos Canizales main event battle.
Estrada's best point was about Teraji's directional movement, as the champion refused to move away from Canizales's power and instead moved right into the challenger's shots.
Estrada's statement proved true later in the fight when Teraji changed things up and began to get hit far less by the challenger.
Hoping to see and hear more in the future from Poncher and Estrada as a team at the announcer's table.
I see Teofimo Lopez continues to call out Terence Crawford for a mega-fight and while I'm not sure that it happens because Lopez isn't quite the PPV draw quite yet that the WBO junior welterweight champion thinks that he is, I am still interested in that pairing.
Lopez does tend to fight better in big fights than he does small ones as he showed in wins over Vasyl Lomachenko and Josh Taylor, his only loss to George Kambosos and a split decision win over Sandor Martin that many including myself thought he lost.
Lopez doesn't have the physical disadvantages that you would think he would either against Crawford, so it's not a mismatch in stature, and skill-wise Lopez can be competitive.
However, Crawford is in a different league, in my opinion, and I'm not sure of Lopez's promotional status with Top Rank after his title defense next month against Jamaine Ortiz.
Crawford has a lawsuit pending against Top Rank and is unlikely to deal with TR should Lopez remain bound to them.
PBC announced the top two fights on their first PPV with Amazon in March.
I'm not thrilled with the main event with WBO junior middleweight champion Tim Tszyu defending against former WBA and WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman.
Tszyu has been an active contender and now champion, having fought three times in 2023.
The same can't be said of Thurman, who hasn't fought since a ho-hum decision win over Mario Barrios in February 2022, and his most recent fight before Barros was his loss to Manny Pacquiao in July 2019.
When you add that Thurman has never fought at 154 pounds and his 1-1 record in the last five years, it's easy to see Thurman as undeserving of this title opportunity.
The co-feature will have Rollie Romero, he of the questionable win over Ismael Barroso, defending against Isaac Cruz, who moves up from lightweight for the title chance.
While I don't have a problem with Cruz, the fight should be Romero-Barroso II, especially now that Barroso knocked out Ohara Davies in one round to grab the WBA interim title that was granted with Romero out with back issues.
WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara will defend his title for the first time against Michael Zerafa of Australia.
Lara, who has fought very soft competition in his four bouts since his 2019 draw with Brian Castano, was promoted to full champion last year when Gennady Golovkin vacated the title but hasn't fought at all since his May 2022 win over journeyman Gary "Spike" O'Sullivan.
Zerafa has lost against his best opponents Peter Quillin, Jeff Horn, and Kell Brook, and doesn't seem deserving of his status but neither does Lara really, so that says a lot for a sadly weak 160-pound division.
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