Boxing Challenge: Wild Night in Riga, Warrington survives.

The World Boxing Super Series finished the semi-finals of their third and final tournament with the cruiserweights, resulting in two of the wildest fights that they could have imagined from Riga, Latvia.

In the first semi-final, Yunier Dorticos won the vacant IBF title with a one-punch KO of Andrew Tabiti in the tenth of a clumsy mix of styles.
The style differential resulted in plenty of awkward stumbles and grasps along with clashes of heads and shoulders that on one occasion in round six ended with a severe gash above the right eye after an encounter of heads.
Dorticos was the aggressive fighter throughout and despite an occasional moment, Tabiti appeared to be very tentative in his first championship attempt.
Dorticos ended the fight with one right hand that will certainly be a KO of the year challenger and moves to the finals of the tournament and a chance to unify two cruiserweight titles.

Why only two?
Didn't I write in the preview that the tournament winner would hold three titles?
Well. the WBC decided that someone (The WBSS, the Latvian boxing federation, the WBO, and who knows who else received various blame) didn't give them enough say in judging, so before the bout in a fit of pique decided to take away their sanctioning of the fight.
Up to that point, the semi-final winner would have then owned two titles and the tournament winner-three, but this decision took away from that.
Maybe someone can pacify the Sulaiman gang before the final and their belt can go to the victor.
In the ring, it was quite wacky as Mairis Briedis ripped away the WBO title from Krzysztof Glowacki via a controversial third-round knockout that was so strange that if it was not for the next fight being for the WBSS tournament championship, I'd bet the WBO would have called for an immediate rematch and I'd bet even more that the organization will rule that the Briedis-Yunier Dorticos winner will be mandated to face Glowacki.

For a round and a half, each fighter landed some punches in exchanges and it appeared that this battle could be a good one, then it all went to hell.
Both fighters move into an almost-clinch, but referee Robert Byrd doesn't move in right away,
The fighters attempt to separate from each other,  and as Briedis locks up the right arm of Glowacki, Glowacki steps to the side and throws a chopping left to the back of the head of Breidis.
Breidis didn't enjoy this rabbit punch and responded with one of those side elbows that resembled one of the famous "seven moves" of Kevin Nash to the face of Glowacki, who crumbled to the floor faster than a vampire staked by Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Glowacki then rolls on the mat with one of those Jimmy Valiant-like spasms and tries to win the fight by DQ, but Robert Byrd isn't having any of that.
Still, Byrd deducts a point from Briedis and the round resumes with Briedis dropping a clearly in trouble Glowacki with a strong right.
Glowacki gets to his feet, says he is OK, and three seconds later (I timed it) before the fighters could reach each other to engage, the bell rings to end round two.

BUT everyone hears it, BUT Robert Byrd.
Briedis jumps on Glowacki and EIGHT seconds after the round should have ended, Briedis knocks down Glowacki, the bell is still ringing and after a badly dazed Glowacki beats the count and takes the mandatory eight count, Byrd seems to finally hear the bell ringing, BUT then waves the fight off for either Glowacki's safety or for Glowacki's corner entering the ring!
Someone explains to Byrd that all of this action came well after what should have been the end of the round and Byrd lets the fight continue, but the damage has already taken its toll on Glowacki, who barely staggers out for round three and is quickly finished off by Briedis.
Byrd is 74 years of age and even though he doesn't look it, this fight may show that retirement from refereeing (I would be OK with him staying as a judge, which Byrd does at times as well for now) should be at least considered and likely decided upon as his performance contributed to the winner of the fight.
Just a farce and even though I think Briedis is the more rounded and skilled fighter and would have likely won this fight, Glowacki was not given a fair chance due to the official that is there to make the fight fair and deserves a rematch.

In Leeds, England, Josh Warrington kept his IBF featherweight crown by a far closer than expected split decision over countryman Kid Galahad.
Warrington's walk forward and throw accumulative punches to simply wear out his opponent, didn't work in this one as Galahad was able to consistently gum up the works through an ugly run-out-the-clock defense.
Galahad's tactics allowed him to stay in the fight, throw Warrington out of sync and basically give him the best chance to win.
Galahad didn't win the fight officially or on my card (115-113 Warrington), but he made Warrington look like less than exciting and with Warrington attempting to land a unification fight with WBO champion Oscar Valdez and battling with Warrington victim Carl Frampton to do so, this fight could not have helped his cause.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica six to five over the weekend with a one-point difference due to the Tyson Fury KO (Ramon picked Fury by decision).
We each selected winning fighters in both WBSS fights and Josh Warrington while losing with Sullivan Barrera.
I lead the challenge 147-132

Boxing Challenge: Crawford Cuts Down Benavidez

It was a WBO weekend in the Boxing Challenge with three championships being defended in various venues and two quarterfinals in the World Boxing Super Series.

The biggest bout hailed from Omaha, Nebraska where hometown star Terence Crawford ripped home a tremendous uppercut in the final round to drop Jose Benavidez and followed up with the most ferocious finishing attack in the business to end the fight with a beaten Benavidez helpless and sliding along the ropes.
Benavidez fought pretty well for the first half of the fight, but Crawford steadily wore the taller and seemingly larger opponent down and was well ahead on my scorecard (8-3) entering the final round.

The problem for Jose Benavidez and what a talented fighter hasn't been able to figure out to date, is that he has excellent physical advantages for the division (tall and strong), but has never learned to use them.
In other words, Benavidez doesn't fight "tall" and use a strong jab to keep opponents on their back foot.
When Benavidez tried that against Crawford and he didn't do enough of it, he had success and whether Crawford took that away from him or he simply refused to continue using what worked, that is where the fight swung to Crawford.

As for Terence Crawford, arguably the top fighter in the world, it looks like a mandatory defense next and then who knows what waits on the Top Rank side.
Everyone wants to see Errol Spence vs Terence Crawford, but the problem is that the guy that likes to fight and wants to be more active (Crawford) doesn't have a lot of fights available, while the person that is content with one or two fights a year (Spence) has plenty of them that are easy to make.
I hate to say it, but we might look back down the road at Crawford-Spence and that might be another great fight that never happened or at least, happened too late.

On the undercard, Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson knocked down late replacement Viorel Simion three times in the first round in a round one stoppage in showing the power that Stevenson had yet to flash in his start as a pro.
A great performance by Stevenson, but I thought the refereeing was inept as the second knockdown was clearly a slip and despite Simion being badly hurt after the third knockdown, the bell clanged loudly that the round was over after Simion rose, yet the referee stopped the fight rather than allow Simion the minute between rounds to try to put things together.
I'm very doubtful that would have happened, but Simion deserved the chance to try.
Bad refereeing happens so often in states like Nebraska that rarely have fight cards and I know that there would be a certain degree of hassle involved, but I'd really like to see referees (and judges for that matter) be imported that have more experience for the world-class cards that are scheduled for less than world class boxing states.

In Russia, the World Boxing Super Series limped to a slow beginning with two quarter-finals in two divisions that went the distance and excited no one.
In the cruiserweight division, American Andrew Tabiti won a unanimous decision over Ruslan Fayfer in a less than exciting fight.
The most exciting thing in this fight was Fayfer's point deduction in the last round for pushing.
I scored Tabiti a 115-112 winner and Tabiti will face the winner of this weekend's Yunier Dorticos-Mateusz Masternak matchup in the semi's.

The other fight in the bantamweight divisional tournament wasn't more exciting as lanky Zolani Tete retained his WBO title with a unanimous decision over a decorated amateur, but inexperienced professional in Mikhail Aloyan,
Outside of Tete knocking Aloyan down in the first round, the bout was eleven rounds of attempted movement by Tete and loads of grabbing, wrestling, and holding by both boxers to the point of both fighters having a point deducted.
Tete will face the winner of the upcoming WBA title fight between Ryan Burnett and Nonito Donaire in the next round.
Let's hope that both Tabiti and Tete will deliver better fights in their next fights than they did last week.

I'm not sure how many people were watching on Facebook as this fight took place at the same time as Terence Crawford was fighting on ESPN, but WBO light flyweight champ Angel Acosta took out Abraham Rodriguez with a bullet of a left hook in the second round as you'll see anywhere.
I'm not sure what Acosta has next for his future, but for his size, he punches as hard as anyone under 126 pounds.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 8-7 on the weekend to increase my lead to 167-143 on the season.

Boxing Challenge:Mayweather stops McGregor

At the end of a big boxing weekend, I had earned 12 points with Ramon Malpica adding seven to put the boxing challenge at 116-102.

In the fight that excited many, but not me, Floyd Mayweather showed signs of age and rust from being 40 and out of the ring for two years before rallying to stop Conor McGregor in the tenth round.
I thought McGregor won the first three rounds, but none thereafter and I had Mayweather ahead 87-84 before the stoppage by referee Robert Byrd.
I'm going to give this a little more than I thought I would so here are a few thoughts.
Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor are brilliant.
Mayweather wasn't going to be hurt by the supposed big bombing McGregor, who learned that being a big puncher in what he does in the UFC doesn't translate to boxing and McGregor wasn't going to be overwhelmed by Mayweather offensively, so neither were going to be hurt.
Mayweather looks to be a spent force at 40 and he needs to take his vow seriously of retiring for good.
Had this been an Errol Spence, Canelo Alvarez, or Gennady Golovkin in the ring last night, Mayweather likely would have hung his first L.
As for McGregor against the same bunch, the fight would have likely ended in half the rounds that this one did.
McGregor looked awkward but looked better than I figured and won a few rounds, which is more than many had done against Mayweather.
Give him credit for exceeding expectations, but keep in mind, the "big hitter" was walked down and stopped by Floyd Mayweather, who hadn't stopped anyone that hadn't dropped their hands to talk to the ref (Victor Ortiz 2011) since Ricky Hatton in 2007!
Better than expected, but still nothing I had to see...
Ramon and I both added two points for the Mayweather KO win.

The undercard was underwhelming as expected.
Mayweather Promotions supposed future superstar Gervonta Davis had a rough weekend as he failed to make weight so he forfeited his IBF junior lightweight title on the scales, got hurt in the seventh round of his bout with Francisco Fonseca before fouling Fonseca with a punch to the back of the head and referee Russell Mora counting Fonseca out rather than penalizing Davis and giving Fonseca a rest period in round eight.
I had Davis ahead 68-65 when the fight ended.
Davis is going to have to do better than this in the future if he is going to be the star that Mayweather hopes he will be.
Ramon and I earned two points each for this bout.

In the most impressive bout of the evening, Badou Jack was impressive in his light heavyweight title debut by taking a secondary light heavyweight title with a fifth-round demolition of Nathan Cleverly.
Jack won every round on my card and I would think that PBC would be pointing him towards WBC champ Adonis Stevenson, but first mandatory challenger Dimitry Bivol awaits.
I would favor the hard-punching Bivol in that bout, so don't be surprised if Jack vacates his minor title for a Stevenson bout, which could be a very entertaining fight.
Ramon and I each earned one point for the win by Jack.

In the PPV opener, Andrew Tabiti won a unanimous decision over former champion Steve Cunningham in a cruiserweight fight.
I haven't seen that fight, so no scoring there.
I added two points for the win by the undefeated Tabiti, while Ramon picked Cunningham.

In a Fox televised prelim affair, Yordanis Ugas won a unanimous decision over Thomas Dulorme in an entertaining scrap.
Ugas knocked down Dulorme twice in the second with Dulorme returning the favor with a seventh-round knockdown.
Dulorme had points deducted for illegalities twice and those cost him the fight as he lost by one point on two cards.
I scored Ugas a 94-92 winner in a fight that would have been five-five on my card if using the rounds system.
I gained two points for the win by the former Olympic bronze medalist with Ramon picking Dulorme.

Over on HBO, two world titles were on the line from Carson, California.
Miguel Cotto won every round from the constantly attacking Yoshihiro Kamegai and won a unanimous decision to win the vacant WBO junior middleweight title.
Kamegai took some huge shots and kept coming, but as good as Cotto looked, he never hurt Kamegai and I told Fred Landucci as I watched that I saw some slowing from Cotto, who was getting hit more than he should from the crude Kamegai.
Cotto says he'll fight one more time before he retires and wants the Golovkin-Alvarez winner, which I'm sure he prefers Alvarez to turn out to be the winner.
Ramon and I each won one point for the Cotto decision...

I only saw the last two rounds of the HBO opener as Rey Vargas won a unanimous decision over Ronny Rios to keep his WBC junior featherweight title.
I added two points for the Vargas win with Ramon adding one.

Now that boxing is finished for the weekend, I hope to start on my New York trip soon.
Keep in mind that Fightheads will be returning in eight days and I've missed it more than I thought.
Can't wait to return to the air...