Boxing Challenge: Cancio crunches Machado again

It was interesting, exciting and both fighters had their moments, but in the end the Andrew Cancio-Alberto Machado rematch ended the same way as their first fight with Machado finished on the floor, this time in three rounds, not four.

The first fight saw Cancio pull a massive upset over Machado, who blamed a bad training camp and problems making weight for his loss and appeared to avoid those issues before the rematch, which Machado was contractually obligated to recieve after he activated that clause.

The first round saw both fighters land plenty with each landing their share of big body shots and the round was fought on even terms.
Machado started well in round two and when the two collided heads with the result opening a bad cut over the right eye of Cancio with the cut being bad enough that it looked to be a factor in the fight with Cancio's vision, if not potentially stopping the fight as the fight moved forward.
However, even in the second round you could feel that Cancio's strength was already taking its toll on Machado and that Machado was going to have to do something to deter the aggression on Cancio.
It didn't take long for Cancio to take that option off the table as you could feel Machado melting away against the attack and when Cancio ripped a left hook to the body that made me think of their first fight,Machado again wilted and couldn't rise from the floor.
For Cancio, it was a confirmation that his first win was not an fluke and stamped him as a player in the 130 pound division, even if it is with a minor belt.
Cancio could be headed for IBF champion Tevin Farmer (both DAZN fighters) or possibly eventually Gervonta Davis as his minor title is under the "super" (ugh) title held by Davis as long as Cancio keeps winning and forces the WBA to make that fight.
As for Machado, I'm not sure where he can go from here.
If you cannot have the strength to keep Andrew Cancio off of you, how can you expect to keep lightweights from rolling over you, especially of the caliber of Vasyl Lomachenko, Teofimo Lopez, Devin Haney and Richard Commey, all of whom are either champions or someone that will need to be dealt with to reach title contention.
Despite the talent that Machado has, I just don't see a road for success for him in the future and he may very well be finished as a title level fighter.

The co-feature saw a surprise and some controversy as Elwin Soto upset Angel Acosta with a 12th round stoppage to strip Acosta of the WBO light flyweight championship.
I had Acosta slightly ahead after a late round rally from an early deficit that saw Soto knock the champion down in the second round in a fight that saw plenty of punches thrown and punches that crashed home on their opponent.
I had Acosta ahead 105-103 (7-4 in rounds with Acosta losing a point for the knockdown) entering the final round with winning most of the second half of the fight with combinations with both hands that consistently found their mark on Soto and hurt him several times, although Soto managed to stay upright throughout the fight.
Acosta was leading on all three cards with my card agreeing with the judge that had the fight that tight, but must have thought he needed the round as he raced out of his corner to attack Soto and drove the challenger into the ropes where Soto threw a Hail Mary of a left hook that landed and hurt Acosta, who wobbled away.
However,I didn't think that Soto's followup punches landed squarely and even though Acosta was far from out of the woods, I didn't think the stoppage by referee Thomas Taylor was a good one.
I would imagine a rematch will be in order.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica added two points for Andrew Cancio's win and I scored nil on the Friday action.
Ramon cut the lead in the challenge to 147-134.

Cancio stuns Machado, Davis rolls Ruiz

 (Photo: Tom Hogan-Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions)

The boxing challenge looked to have two junior lightweight champions that eventually would be forced to meet in what a generous person would call a showcase bout and what a cynical one would describe as a squash match.

Quickly after WBA champion Gervonta Davis crushed Hugo Ruiz like a 7up can in breaking his nose and finishing him in one round on Showtime, that gave me time to flip to DAZN and WBA minor champion Alberto Machado's showcase against Andrew Cancio.
It looked that Machado was on his way to a one round evening as well after dropping Cancio about 25 seconds after I changed the stream.
The difference was Cancio got up, began to fight back and three rounds later, the early leader for the upset of the year was in the books as Cancio scored three knockdowns with body shots and battered a suddenly disinterested Machado before the fight was stopped.
The new champion will likely be targeted by several in the division thinking that he is an easy mark, but despite his average record, Cancio may not appear to be a long term stock to buy, but once again, the rule comes up that being thrown in tough and accumulating a few losses isn't always a bad thing before the big time comes calling.

Rey Vargas was knocked down in the second round by Franklin Manzanilla and looked vulnerable to the Salidoesque tactics of the challenger.
Those tactics soon would backfire with two different point reductions that canceled out the knockdowns over the course of the fight and Vargas did what he does-control from the outside and delivered a solid, but unspectacular effort to win going away by unanimous decision to retain his WBC junior featherweight title.
I had Vargas winning 117-111, which was pretty close to the official score.
I have hope that the winner of the WBA-IBF unification fight at the weight between Daniel Roman and T.J Doheny on DAZN could be convinced to unify further against Vargas, who isn't proving a lot with his defenses against lesser contenders.

Joseph Diaz dominated neighborhood rival and childhood friend Charles Huerta in winning every round on my round and winning an easy unanimous decision.
Huerta did his best, but this is the difference between a world-class competitor and an average ten round fighter.

On Showtime, the main event did see Gervonta Davis do what you expect someone of his talent to do when facing an undermanned, outgunned late substitute when he smacked Hugo Ruiz around for a round before blowing him out like a baseball bat going through the bottom of a paper cup.
The problem is that Ruiz was the first fight in ten months for Davis after fighting just once last year and doesn't appear to have any peers in his division capable of giving him a hard fight other than WBC champ Miguel Berchelt, who is not with PBC.
Davis could move to lightweight after trouble making weight for Ruiz, but the picture isn't any better there with WBA/WBO lightweight champ Vasyl Lomachenko and IBF champ Richard Commey having agreements to fight on ESPN through their promoters.
WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia would be a very attractive fight and one easy to make, depending on the outcome of Garcia's fight with Errol Spence next month.
Other than Garcia, I just don't see Davis having a fight to be excited about for quite a while.

Lightweight Javier Fortuna slogged his way to a unanimous decision win over Sharif Bogere in a sloppy mix of styles that could be considered ill-advised matchmaking.
Fortuna did score a borderline knockdown in the sixth, but the rest of the bout had so much headbutting, wrestling and grappling that I expected Mr.Wrestling II to kneelift both these guys out of the ring.
My card agreed with all three judges 96-93 Fortuna.

Erickson Lubin showed his power in driving former junior middleweight champion (albeit six years ago and lost in his first defense to the long forgotten Carlos Molina) Ishe Smith into retirement with four knockdowns in three rounds before the fight was stopped in the corner after the third.
The intrigue here was could Lubin stop the never before stopped Smith before Smith tested the china chin of Lubin.
Lubin landed first and showed the huge power that he possesses in crushing Smith as never before.
Lubin reminds me a lot of former junior middleweight and middleweight champion and 2019 Hall of Fame Inductee Julian Jackson.
Few in the game had the power of Jackson (Lubin) and Jackson (Lubin) can take anyone out that they hit squarely and conversely anyone that hits them (Jackson/Lubin) has the ability to take them out with chins that describing as questionable would be a very positive assessment to say on anyone's part.
Erickson Lubin will continue to be almost mandatory watching because the ending will likely be exciting and unpredictable.

In the boxing challenge Ramon Malpica and I each scored nine points and remain tied at 29.

Boxing Challenge: Jacobs edges Dereyvanchenko

The boxing weekend began in beautiful Bulgaria before traveling to the Big Easy and the Big Apple to finish with somewhat of a flourish.

The biggest fight of the weekend took place in New York City as Daniel Jacobs nipped Sergiy Dereyvanchenko via a split decision to win the vacant IBF middleweight title.
I scored Jacobs a 114-113 winner with the difference being a first-round knockdown scored by Jacobs.
Dereyvanchenko hurt Jacobs more often over the course of the fight than in reverse, but Jacobs managed to stay up and that gave him the win on my scorecard, which seemed to be closer than most of the press.
Jacobs should be the most likely opponent for Canelo Alvarez in May, considering both champions are contracted with DAZN in what would put the IBF title back with the WBA and WBC titles before it was stripped from Gennady Golovkin earlier this year.

The co-feature saw Alberto Machado impressively dispose of Yaundale Evans in the first round to retain his minor title, dropping Evans three times before the referee called the mismatch off.
The lanky banging Machado might be a tough out for anyone at 130 pounds, but with his size, I could see him moving to the lightweight division and have little problems with strength.

New Orleans was the host for two World Boxing Super Series scraps in the junior welterweight tournament with the main event featuring top seed and local product Regis Prograis dominate former WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan to retain his minor title via a unanimous decision to move the next round in the tournament.
Prograis dominated throughout and dropped Flanagan to his knees in the ninth for the first time in Flanagan's career.
I scored Prograis a 118-109 winner, which seemed to be in line with most.
Prograis will battle WBA champion Kiryl Relikh in the semi-finals.

In the other quarter-final, Ivan Baranchyk earned the vacant IBF belt when Anthony Yigit was unable to continue due to a virtually closed eye in the seventh round.
I had Baranchyk far ahead and the eye brought to mind the puffed eye that Rocky Balboa asked Mickey to cut in his first fight with Apollo Creed as Fred Landucci commented on when we discussed this fight.
I thought it was a good decision to end the fight because Yigit wasn't going to be able to keep Baranchyk off of him anyway and the eye was only going to make things worse for the wounded Swede.
The new IBF champion will face the winner of next weekend's Josh Taylor-Ryan Martin fight in the semi-finals.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, veteran Kubrat Pulev won a unanimous decision over Hughie Fury to become the top contender in the IBF ratings, which means an eventual shot at Anthony Joshua's championship.
Fury looked to be the stronger fighter early, but a Pulev jab in the second round tore open a gash along Fury's and slowly took the starch out of the Englishman, but didn't exactly leave Joshua concerned about his eventual challenge.
I scored Pulev a 116-112 winner.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica outscored me seven to five over the weekend and cut my lead to 177-154.

Boxing Challenge;Usyk wins WBSS!!

Finally, we have a four belt champion and the winner of the first World Boxing Super Series as Oleksandr Usyk gave the performance of his career with a dazzling and dominant victory over Murat Gassiev in Moscow via a unanimous decision.

Usyk's win annexed the WBA and IBF cruiserweight titles from Gassiev added them to the WBO and WBC championships that he already held and left no doubt that he is the best cruiserweight in the world.
I thought the fight was a pick em level fight, but I leaned Gassiev by a hair.
I was quickly proven wrong as the speed and quickness of Usyk left Gassiev befuddled and confused for the evening and on the occasion that the power-hitting Gassiev did connect, Usyk took those hammers extremely well in winning a 118-110 decision on my card.
Usyk was the tournament's top seed and won all three of his tournament events in his opponent's home country defeating Marco Huck in Germany, Mairis Briedis in Latvia and then Gassiev in Russia in the final.

The rumored next fight for Usyk is Brit Tony Bellew, a former cruiserweight champ with two wins over former heavyweight champion David Haye in Bellew's last two fights.
Hopefully, that fight will be at cruiserweight, where it would be nice to see Usyk make a few defenses of the unified title and not have the title break back into four pieces after a move to heavyweight.
I'd like to see Usyk in a rematch vs Mairis Bredis, who Usyk defeated in the semi's by a narrow majority decision before he leaves for the bigger division.
I scored their fight a draw so this would be far from a sure thing for Usyk.

As for the WBSS, they couldn't have asked for more from their first tournament.
They had every major cruiser and most of the best in the world, were able to put together exciting and compelling bouts and unified all the titles.
Every tourney won't be able to do that, as their super middleweight bracket has shown and they won't be able to attract all the champions every time, as their 2018-19 brackets have shown.
The cruiserweight champions were all European attractions, so there was not a need for an American presence- eventually, they will need one.
The WBSS still will need to prove that they will be able to bring the best fighters in from the three main American promoters (they have yet to pull a major star from Golden Boy, PBC or Top Rank), and they have to hope Eddie Hearn's streaming service DAZN catches on as season two's contests will be exclusive to that outlet, but still I have to say the WBSS is an early success story, let's hope that this can be sustained.

On HBO, the main event was the return of exciting banger Jaime Munguia in the first defense of his WBO junior middleweight title against former champion Liam Smith in Las Vegas.
I haven't had a chance to watch Munguia's unanimous decision win, so I'll edit this later when I have.

Alberto Machado won every round over Rafael Mensah in the dull opener to retain a minor title.
Machado was arguably the most screwed over fighter by the WBA after he won their top title with a stunning KO of favored Jezreel Corrales, only to be dropped to their "regular' title in order to have the top "vacant" title (which really wasn't) filled by Gervonta Davis.
Machado knocked Mensah down at the end of the first round and had he had a few more seconds, might have ended the fight there.
Instead, we received eleven more rounds of a tedious beating.
I scored Machado a 120-107 winner.

In the challenge, Ramon Malpica scored 4 points to my 3 and cut my lead to 25 at 115-90...

Boxing Challenge:Machado upsets Corrales

The boxing challenge for the weekend starts in Verona, New York with two bouts from HBO that had varying intensities.

In the main event, Alberto Machado won the WBA junior lightweight title from Jezreel Corrales (TRS #3) when Machado landed a left hand while eating one from Corrales, dropping
Corrales and surviving himself.
The eighth round knockout allowed Machado to win a title that Corrales could not retain after missing weight by multiple pounds at the weigh-in.
WBA rules stated that after an agreement to keep the fight going that if Machado won, he would become champion and the title would become vacant with a Corrales win.
Machado had won just one round on my card (the sixth, where he should have been given a 10-8 round for a knockdown that was not called) before the abrupt victory.
The lean Machado will be an interesting addition to the 130 pound title picture with WBC champ Miguel Berchelt as a possible opponent should he defeat the gritty veteran Orlando Salido in December or the IBF champion (decided on the same card in December as Tevin Farmer faces Kenichi Ogawa for the title that Gervonta Davis sacrificed on the scale in August) for the slot of best in the division other than WBO champion Vasyl Lomachenko.

The co-feature saw the return of Demetrius Andrade (TRS #3 at junior middle) moving up to middleweight against undefeated and untested Alantez Fox.
In a bout that rivaled any Guillermo Rigondeaux or Erislandy Lara fight for boredom, Andrade won every round on my card, but the seventh and took a unanimous decision.
Fox scored a knockdown in the seventh that really was a tangled foot issue.
I scored Andrade a 118-109 winner and I hope we see him against better challengers next time out.

HBO showed a good bantamweight bout on tape delay from Belfast, Northern Ireland as Ryan Burnett unified his IBF title with the WBA belt with a unanimous decision over Zhanat Zhakiyanov (TRS #3).
I scored Burnett a 117-111 winner after the fight was even after six rounds, but saw Burnett dominate the second half of the fight.
I'm sure we will see Burnett debut in the next edition of the TRS ratings.

In the final quarter-final of the World Boxing Super Series, Murat Gassiev (TRS #2) retained his IBF cruiserweight title in Newark, New Jersey with a body shot in round three that dropped Krzysztof Wlodarczyk for the count.
Gassiev pushed Wlodarczyk around the ring and from the opening bell, the verdict was clear that Gassiev could pick his round of victory,
Gassiev moves to the semi-finals against Yunier Dorticos in what should be a thrilling battle early in 2018 and might be establishing the early leader for 2018 fight of the year.
Next Saturday will have the final quarter-final in the super middleweights between Jurgen Brahmer and Rob Brant and following that, I'll have a look and some thoughts about the initial round of the WBSS.

From Tokyo for a minor title, Ryota Murata avenged one of the worst decisions in 2017 when Hassan N'Dam could not answer the bell for round eight in their middleweight fight.
I had Murata ahead on the cards and dominated the fight seen live on ESPN2 at 7;30 AM.
My issue is why the WBA made this for their "regular" title, when the organization that claims they want to reduce their titles, could have swallowed this one when Gennady Golovkin defeated Daniel Jacobs in March?
There is a manner to force a fight between the champion and a top challenger- it's called being the number one contender and that doesn't mean they are a champion too.

In an untelevised bout in the challenge, Daigo Higa (TRS #3) retained his WBC flyweight title with a seventh round knockout of Thomas Massson on the Murata-N'Dam undercard.
Higa has won by KO in all 14 of his pro bouts.

In the Boxing Challenge-

I earned three points for the Murat Gassiev win (a bonus point for getting the round correct), two points for the Daigo Higa KO win, one point for the wins by Ryan Burnett , Demetrius Andrade, and Ryota Murata and I missed on Alberto Machado's victory.

Ramon added two points for Gassiev's win and one each for the Andrade and Higa wins while missing on Machado,Murat and Burnett's wins.

The Challenge now stands at 154-137.
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