Boxing Challenge: Nunez outslugs Diaz

      Sometimes in boxing, fighters exceed their abilities because they know that they could be down to their final chance.

Christopher Diaz had failed in two title tries, and before his third attempt, Diaz was the opponent for the homecoming of the first title defense for IBF junior lightweight champion Eduardo "Sugar" Nunez.

Nunez won the fight and retained his title via unanimous decision, but Diaz won the night with a gallant effort in providing Nunez with a severe test in an all-action brawl.

Nunez looked to be ready to finish Diaz off in the seventh round when he knocked the veteran down twice, but Diaz survived the round and gave as good as he got in the late rounds.

Nunez won by scores of 117-109 (times two) and 116-110, which were a little wider than my card of 115-111 for Nunez.

Nunez is rumored to possibly face WBO champion Emanuel Navarette in a unification fight next, in what is a can't-miss all-Mexican action battle.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 127 Pts  (1)

Ramon Malpica: 122 Pts (2)

Vince Samano: 48 Pts (2)

Boxing Challenge: Navarrete stops Diaz in 12, Berlanga streak snapped

 Emanuel Navarrete retained his WBO featherweight title when he stopped a brave Christopher Diaz in the final seconds of round twelve.

Navarrete scored knockdowns in the fourth round, two more in the eighth, and again in the final round with Diaz's trainer Nelson Rodriguez signaling surrender for his man shortly after a battered Diaz rose from the floor.

Diaz was deducted a point in round seven for kidney punches and trailed on my card 107-98 going into the final round.

Give Diaz full credit for toughness and he landed his share of punches against Navarrete, but Navarrete was far too strong and sharp with his shots against Diaz.

This was one of those bouts that was dominated by one fighter, yet the loser made the fight entertaining and just competitive enough to enjoy watching.

If Diaz hasn't had a lot taken out of him by such a brutal defeat, he's likely made himself some fans due to his heart in the loss.

As for Navarrete, he's in a bit of a pickle at 126.

Navarrete's best fights appear to be difficult to make with WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz (who for some reason still holds their title despite not fighting in the division for 26 months and counting) and WBC champion Gary Russell ( who fights exactly once a year against his mandatory and then returns to his hole to hibernate like a cicada) both fighting for PBC.

Minor champion Xu Can might be the best and easiest fight to make with both guys throwing lots of punches and unafraid to take them either.

Can was scheduled to fight Josh Warrington in a unification fight of sorts with Warrington vacating his IBF title to face Can rather than fight a rematch against mandatory contender Kid Galahad, whom he defeated in 2019, but Warrington was knocked out by Mauricio Lara, so Can could be in search of an opponent.

Navarrete may decide to move up to 130 pounds where Top Rank is far better situated with WBC champion Oscar Valdez, WBO champion Jamel Herring, and Shakur Stevenson and could easily make any of those contests.

In the co-feature, the first-round knockout streak of undefeated Edgar Berlanga ended and his knockout string ended period as veteran Demond Nicholson took Berlanga the eight round distance.

Still, Berlanga was far from disappointing as he knocked Nicholson down four times and almost finished him in the final round with a knockdown with seconds remaining.

I scored Berlanga an 80-68 winner on my card.

A solid performance and one that Berlanga will learn from the experience from a tough journeyman such as Nicholson, who I would imagine will receive more fights after his determined effort against the big-banging Berlanga.

Berlanga is far from a refined product though and it's ridiculous that the even more ridiculous WBA has him ranked fifth in the world at this time, but the talent is there for a future star.

A word on the ESPN crew, which had a bad night in my opinion.

The best part of the end of the knockout streak for the promising Berlanga is that I no longer have to listen to Joe Tessitore breathlessly count down the seconds before the end of the round.

Tessitore's work seems to get worse by the card, and the fawning over Andre Ward, who always seems like the smug guy at work that you'd like to see water poured on, is especially sickening.

Case in point, Tessitore volunteers that Ward would come out of retirement for a fight with Canelo Alvarez, which I couldn't blame Ward for, and rambles about what an exciting fight it would be.

One can say many things about the undefeated career of Andre Ward and I have (most notably here)-

Exciting is not one of them.

I like Tim Bradley's energy, but he often seems to be in the "Hey Spike" role to Ward and that's too bad.

I think Bradley could be very good with a good play by play person to play to his strengths, but until he isn't forced to spend most of a card with "That's right, 'Dre", he isn't going to get there.

ESPN's production is very strong, but their announcing lags behind in a sport not filled with great commentating teams....

In Osaka, Japan, Kenshiro Teraji (Known as Ken Shiro) defended his WBC junior flyweight title via unanimous decision over countryman and mandatory challenger Tetsuya Hisada via unanimous decision.

I've only watched the first two rounds of the fight and will edit this later once I have finished watching.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored four points to move our totals to 54-50 for the year to date.

Boxing Challenge: Franco Surprises Moloney!

ESPN's Tuesday night card seemed to be their strongest card thus far entering the evening and it came through with two entertaining fights.

In the main event, Joshua Franco dominated the second half of the fight and surprised favored Australian Andrew Moloney via a unanimous decision to take away Moloney's minor junior bantamweight title and his undefeated record in Las Vegas.
Franco knocked down Moloney in the eleventh round and an argument could have been made to stop the fight to save a badly hurt Moloney.
Moloney showed plenty of heart in surviving the round and his best round in the second half was the final round, which could have been scored for him.
I had Franco a 116-111 winner (8-4 and a knockdown), but the fight was much closer on the official scorecards with two judges scoring for Franco 114-113.
Had Franco not scored the eleventh round knockdown, the fight would have been scored a majority decision draw, which would have brought the Hamburglar out from his grill to complain about the decision!
Moloney was taken to the hospital following the fight and was diagnosed with both eardrums busted, but showed enough in defeat to not write him off as a future contender in the division.
As for Franco, who entered this fight after three terrific fights against Oscar Negrete (and a KO of Juan Burgos), which he won a split decision with the other two ending in draws, he looks like he'll be at least be a solid contender, if not a long-term champion in a division that is very solid at the top.
I'd love to see am eventual title defense in a fourth bout against Negrete, who was scheduled to fight the other Moloney (Jason) on Thursday but was found to have a detached retina in his checkup entering the fight.
It'll be interesting to see how Franco fares in his next few fights, but at minimum Franco will make solid action fights and he could develop into a top fighter in the division with some luck.

Christopher Diaz won a unanimous decision in the co-main event over Jason Sanchez in a crossroads fight between two fighters that entered the fight in desperate need of a win.
Diaz looked like the fighter that was favored to win a vacant world title against Masayuki Ito before losing an upset decision and landed the more powerful punches against Sanchez, who threw more punches but landed less in defeat.
I scored Diaz a 98-92 winner, which was the same as two of the judges, and while Diaz called for a world title fight after the win, I'd like to see another solid victory or two before that shot.
I would think that Diaz should get that title try with those wins as Top Rank is well situated in the featherweight division, although I see no point in a rematch with WBO champion Shakur Stevenson.
However, Diaz could be in the mix to possibly fight for the title vacated by Stevenson, should he do so in the future which he has been rumored to be considering.

Ramon Malpica earned two points for the Diaz victory to my zero and trimmed my boxing challenge lead to five at 53-48.

Boxing Challenge-Lomachenko Dominates Rigondeaux

Huge weekend in the boxing challenge and since I was in Pittsburgh for the Steel City Comic Con, I have yet to catch on everything as of this writing, but I did see the biggest card of the weekend from Top Rank on ESPN with the anticipated first ever meeting of two double Olympic gold medal winners as Vasyl Lomachenko defended his WBO junior lightweight title against Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Sadly, the bout didn't live up to its hype as Lomachenko dominated every round against Rigondeaux and left the reluctant Cuban to retire on his stool at the end of the sixth round with an injured hand.
Now, it is tremendously difficult to fight through a hand injury and I'm not attempting to diminish the injury at all, but it's the difference between the warrior and just a fighter and when it was time to determine what was in the tank for Rigondeaux when the rubber hit the road, he chose to quit.
No knockdowns scored and what wasn't expected to be a war, but it was even more disappointing than expected.
I'm not sure what Rigondeaux has in his future, but Lomachenko doesn't appear to have any challenges at 130 unless he wants to collect belts and even then I don't think those are true challenges,simply exercises in collecting.
Lomachenko may have to move to 135 for potential fights against Jorge Linares or Mikey Garcia to face any sort of competitive opponent.

The co-feature promising junior lightweight prospect Christopher Diaz blow out Bryant Cruz in three impressive rounds as he scored knockdowns in every round.
Diaz may not be ready for Lomachenko soon, but he might be the fighter that takes over the division when Lomachenko moves to 135.

On FS1 from the PBC on Friday, former light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal had not looked good of late and entered what he claimed to be his final fight against Ahmed Elbali, who had looked very impressive as he had worked his way through his early tests.
I thought Pascal was ripe for being the first name on Elbali's resume and early on it looked to be the case.
However, Pascal drained the gas from Elbali's tank and stopped an exhausted Elbali in the sixth round.
Let's see after such a big win if Pascal truly is able to walk away.

On HBO, a three bout card from Las Vegas saw the junior lightweights featured.
The main event saw the end of the exciting career of the only fighter to defeat Vasyl Lomachenko as Orlando Salido was stopped by Miguel Roman in the 9th round of an excellent fight.
I had Roman slightly ahead entering round nine, mainly on the basis of knockdowns scored in the fourth and eighth round before closing the show in the ninth.
Glad to see Salido go out before he gets seriously hurt and going out in a good fight instead of one in which he was badly overmatched.

We saw a Hamburglar arrival as Kenichi Ogawa won the vacant IBF title by a split decision over Tevin Farmer.
This was a robbery as I had Farmer a 117-111 winner and I fail to see how anyone could see Ogawa a winner in any way.
I would not be surprised to see the IBF mandate an immediate rematch due to the decision.

Francisco Vargas won the opener by a unanimous technical decision in the tenth round when a head butt split the ear IN HALF (YES!) of Stephen Smith in round ten..
I've been around boxing a long time-I've never seen an injury like that!
If you didn't see this and have a weak stomach, don't look this up!
I had Vargas a 97-93 winner.

Boxing challenge points
R.L: One point for Lomachenko and Roman wins
TRS:Two points for Lomachenko win/KO, One point Cruz win

Total Standings TRS leads:188-171

I'll have to watch the other three bouts on youtube later this week and I'll add them to Wednesday morning's Jeff Horn bout for that Challenge recap!