Boxing Challenge-Berinchyk surprises Navarrete

     The ESPN boxing card from San Diego saw two upsets with one new champion and another simply biding his time before stepping forward to collect his belt.

In the main event, Denis Berinchyk surprised heavy favorite Emanuel Navarrete with a split decision to win the vacant WBO lightweight title in a fight that wasn't nearly as active as one expects from a Navarrete fight.

Berinchyk countered the wild punches of Navarrete more effectively than Navarrete's opponents in the lighter-weight divisions and it was Berinchyk who dominated the late rounds of the fight surprising Navarrete who has usually been the stronger fighter in the waning rounds in the past.

Navarrete was slower than usual and he may have been sluggish at the higher weight enabling Berinchyk to do just enough to earn a split decision with scores of 116-112 and 115-113 to counter a dissenting card of 116-112 for Navarrete.

Berinchyk might be headed for WBC champion Shakur Stevenson next while Navarrete could return to the junior lightweight division and defend the WBO title that he still holds in that division or stay at lightweight, where he will need to improve his efforts if he expects to contend for a championship.

In the co-feature, Brian Norman turned in the best outing of his career in busting up Giovanni Santillan's face before dropping him twice and finishing him off in round ten,

Norman had not been overly impressive in his unbeaten career against less-than-strong opposition and Santillan looked very strong in his six-round crushing of Alexis Rocha, costing Rocha his top ranking in the WBO.

Santillan started strong and looked to be bullying Norman before Norman established his respect in the fourth round and began to steadily beat up Santillan, cutting him on both sides of his face which would cover both combatants in blood.

Norman hurt Santillan in the ninth and perhaps the Santillan corner could have stopped the fight but allowed their fighter to come out for the tenth where Norman knocked Santillan down and the referee could have ended things then and there but kept things going which resulted with Norman landing an uppercut for the final knockdown with the fight finally concluding.

With the win, Norman wins the WBO interim welterweight title, which normally means nothing but Norman will become the full champion when Terence Crawford officially leaves the division.

I'll be writing on the Usyk-Fury undercard in my next post.