Boxing Challenge: Garcia busts Benn

   Ryan Garcia dropped Conor Benn with a right hand and finished him off after a shaky Benn got to his feet in round two, for a painless stoppage of Benn in the biggest fight promoted by Zuffa Boxing in their short existence.

Benn slugged it out evenly with Garcia in the first round, but his drop from the middleweight division may have weakened him, as the Englishman crumbled with the big right hand from Garcia.

Garcia has spoken of several opponents for his next fight, asking for a return from retirement from former three-division undisputed champion Terence Crawford, a rematch with Gervonta Davis, who stopped Garcia in seven rounds in 2023, or a unification fight with WBA champion Teofimo Lopez.

Benn will likely rise in weight but doesn't have an obvious opponent for his next fight and will have to revitalize himself after a devastating loss.

Unbeaten former IBF cruiserweight champion Jai Opietaia stopped WBC champion Noel Mikelian in nine rounds in the co-feature, but didn't win the title as Mikaelin was stripped of the title before the fight.

Andres Cortes won a unanimous decision over former featherweight champion Mark Magsayo in a lightweight ten rounder and in the best fight of the night, welterweight contender Alexis Rocha won a competitive unanimous decision over former junior welterweight champion Jose Ramirez.

I'd like to see Rocha and Ramirez in a rematch.

Boxing Challenge

TRS:  106 Pts (5)

Ramon Malpica: 91 Pts (4)

Vince Samano: 60 Pts (0)

 

Boxing Challenge: Benn Avenges loss to Eubank Jr.

    The boxing challenge boasted two cards outside the United States this weekend, with one fighter avenging his only defeat and another retaining his world championship.

Conor Benn evened his series with Chris Eubank Jr with a dominant unanimous decision win in London.

Eubank, who won the first fight earlier this year in what might be the fight of the year, looked spent as Benn outboxed the older man throughout and avoided any counters.

Benn dropped Eubank twice in the final round and would have likely stopped his foe with even a few more seconds remaining in the fight.

Benn announced plans to return to welterweight for potential title challenges of either WBC champion Mario Barrios or IBF titleholder Lewis Crocker, both of which Benn would be favored against.

Eubank Jr should consider retirement, but likely will not, even if a third fight seems unlikely after Benn's easy victory.

On the undercard in a fight I have yet to watch, Jack Catterall knocked Ekow Essuman in the eleventh round of a welterweight eliminator.

Catterall was fighting in the division for the second time, while Essuman had scored his biggest career win in his previous fight over former champion (and Catterall foe) Josh Taylor.

In Mexico, Rafael Espinoza retained his WBO featherweight title when challenger Arnold Khegai was unable to answer the bell for round eleven.

Espinoza hammered the gutsy Khegai throughout the fight, rendering Khegai's face into a swollen mask.

I didn't see the co-feature, but most seem to believe Lindolfo Delgado was given a split decision in his junior welterweight eliminator against Gabriel Valenzuela

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 141 Pts (4)

Ramon Malpica: 133 Pts (3)

Vince Samano:  53 Pts (0)

Boxing Challenge: Eubank outslugs Benn

    The boxing weekend was all about the British as London's Tottenham Hotspur stadium held the four fights in the boxing challenge.

The main event was a surprise as I believed the match between Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn would be a bigger man wearing down a smaller man in a lopsided result of a heavily hyped fight.

Instead, the two brawled for twelve rounds in a fight that begged for these two to hook it up for a second time, with Eubank Jr emerging with the unanimous decision victory.

All three judges scored the bout 116-112 (as I did) for Eubank Jr.

Eubank's larger frame was too much for the gutsy Benn to get past, and it wasn't until the final round that either fighter was seriously in trouble, when Eubank stunned Benn and attempted to earn the stoppage, with Benn barely surviving.

I have to admit this fight did very little for me before the bout, but both men showed heart and skill,s and I was wrong, this fight was worth the time.

Light heavyweight contender Anthony Yarde won the rubber match in his third fight against Lyndon Arthur by unanimous decision.

This one was entertaining for six rounds, but Yarde controlled the second half of the fight to win by scores of 116-112 times two (my score) and 115-113.

Middleweight Aaron McKenna won the biggest fight of his career with a battering of former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith.

McKenna almost stopped Smith in the final round, dropping him after a punch to the body, but Smith managed to hear the final bell.

McKenna's winning scores were 119-108, 118-108, and 117-109, with my score at 118-109.

McKenna should be moved to the next level after a tremendous outing, while Smith should consider retirement after an excellent career.

Former WBO cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith was a winner in his return from his title loss to Gilberto Ramirez with a unanimous decision over Brandon Glanton.

I had the fight even after eight rounds, but it was all Billam-Smith late to earn the nod on the scorecards.

Scores of 116-112 times two (same as mine) and 116-113 for Billam-Smith

Billam-Smith is now in line to meet the winner of this weekend's WBC cruiserweight title match between champion Badou Jack and Noel Mikaelian.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 61 Pts (4)

Ramon Malpica:56 Pts (6)

Vince Samano:23 Pts (0)

Boxing Challenge: Buatsi downs Azeez

    Joshua Buatsi earned the biggest win of his career. He became the top contender in the WBA and likely the WBC with a unanimous decision in his light heavyweight eliminator in London on Saturday.

Buatsi outslugged Azeez throughout the fight and dropped Azeez twice in the eleventh round, just after Azeez seemed to be rallying in the ninth and tenth.

Buatsi won by scores of 116-110 and 117-109 times two, the latter score the same as mine.

Buatsi's win will eventually see him with a mandatory challenge of the winner of the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitry Bivol that will take place in June.

Junior welterweight prospect Adam Azim continued his progress with a fifth-round stoppage of Enoch Paulson. 

Azim dominated the fight and finished with Paulson dislocating his shoulder, unable to continue.

I had Azim ahead 40-36 at the time of the stoppage.

Conor Benn took the next step in his ring return with a unanimous decision over Peter Dobson in Las Vegas.

Dobson had his moments, especially in the middle of the fight, but Benn threw more often and deserved the decision. However, he surprisingly was unable to put Dobson in any sort of difficulty.

Benn won by scores of 119-111 and two of 118-110.

I had it a little closer at 116-112.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 17 Pts (5)

Ramon Malpica: 15 Pts (4)

Vince Samano: 7 Pts (3)

Boxing Challenge: Stanionis holds off Butaev

   Since I'll be at work and unable to see the Showtime/PBC PPV broadcast from Arlington, Texas, I decided to get ahead of the game and write about the two fights that Showtime placed on their air from the undercard along with the main event from DAZN and Matchroom from Manchester, England.

I wrote in the preview that the welterweight pairing for a minor belt but importantly the mandatory position in the WBA for the Spence-Ugas winner between Radzhab Butaev and Eimantas Stanionis couldn't miss as an action fight and it turned out to be exactly that as Stanionis won a split decision to place him in line for tonight's Spence-Ugas victor.

Neither fighter scored a knockdown and neither did a lot of moving around the ring, leading to plenty of action and landed punches.

Stanionis landed more and the slightly harder punches against Butaev, who lost a point in the eleventh round for pushing down on Stanionis' head and still fought well against the stronger fighter.

Stanionis used his jab to get inside and work on Butaev and although it's not quite to this level, the Stanionis jab is a power jab and reminded me of how Gennady Golovkin uses his jab as a weapon not as one to probe or use from a distance.

I thought Stanonis was the winner at 116-111, which agreed with one of the winning cards for Stanionis with the other at 117-110, and was very surprised by the 114-113 card for Butaev which seemed way out of bounds.

It will be interesting to see if the WBA decides to strip the Spence-Ugas winner, should they not fight Stanonis next.

A unification fight against WBO champion Terence Crawford might get another allowance but Stanonis is in the picture and he'll be getting his shot sooner or later.

Junior welterweight prospect Brandun Lee was forced to go the ten round distance for the first time by veteran Zach Ochoa and despite getting hit more than he should in the final few rounds, Lee was able to get some good work in and was never threatened by Ochoa, who started to throw punches way too late to challenge Ochoa.

A nice win for Lee, who still has plenty of work to do before moving up a level in opposition but still looked strong enough going the ten rounds.

My score of 98-92 was in line with one judge with the other two scoring 99-91 for Lee.

No judges were needed in Manchester England with welterweight Conor Benn destroying veteran Chris Van Heerden in two rounds.

Benn and Van Heerden each fought well in the first round with both landing good shots but in the second round, Benn crunched Van Heerden with one right-hand bomb, and a few seconds and a strong flurry later, Van Heerden was crumpled in a corner and the referee saw no need for a count.

Benn's ready for bigger challenges but Matchroom really doesn't have a good fit for him right now, unless they want to massively overpay Terence Crawford to defend his WBO title in England, which wouldn't be a good idea anyway as Benn is nowhere near ready for a fighter of "Bud's" talent.

Benn's next opponent that would make sense would be light-hitting and undefeated Brit Michael McKinson, who has only two knockouts and bored watchers to sleep in McKinson's American debut.

Still, Matchroom has both fighters and McKinson is rated higher in the WBO (3rd to 5th) so a win would be worth something but after the fight, the name Amir Khan emerged as a possibility.

That's an awful idea considering what Khan looked like in his knockout loss to Kell Brook and it could get Khan badly hurt, so here is hoping that idea goes by the wayside.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 56 Pts (4)

Vince Samano: 50 Pts (4)

Ramon Malpica: 46 Pts (4) 

Boxing Challenge: Lomachenko dominates Commey

  I haven't been able to watch all of the fight cards from Saturday (there were five in total!), so I will be splitting the reviews into two parts.

On ESPN from Madison Square Garden, former three-division champion Vasyl Lomachenko tossed his hat into the Australian derby for the right to travel Down Under for the first shot at the recently crowned WBA.IBF, and WBO lightweight champion George Kambosos with a dominant unanimous decision over former IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey.

Lomachenko started and drove Commey into the ropes with a strong right hand late in the second round but gestured to Commey to come to the center of the ring rather than jump on the veteran.

In the seventh, Lomachenko scored the only knockdown of the fight with a left hook that almost ended the fight but after Commey beat the count Lomachencko spoke to Commey's corner and asked them to stop the fight.

Richard Commey might be the best-liked fighter in the game as Teofimo Lopez liked Commey so much that he attended Commey's return to the ring after Lopez's win over Commey and Lomachenko legitimately seemed concerned by Commey's condition in the seventh round.

Lomachenko didn't move into a full-blown slowdown after the seventh but he also didn't accelerate the pace in an effort to stop Commey either as the Ghanian gamely made to the final bell without much offense in the late rounds.

I scored Lomachenko an easy 118-109 winner (10-2 with a knockdown) which is in the ballpark of the official scores (119-108 x2 and 117-110) and after his second dominant win in a row after his loss to Teofimo Lopez, Lomachenko is ranked first by the WBC and WBO and has stated that he will travel to Australia to face George Kambosos if asked.

On DAZN, Matchroom placed the first name victim on the record of welterweight prospect Conor Benn as washed-up veteran Chris Algeri was taken out with one right hand near the end of the fourth round in Liverpool England.

Benn was dominating the fight before the knockout that ended the fight with Algeri out cold and without the referee even needing to count.

Algeri, who is still living off a dubious win over Ruslan Provodnikov almost eight years ago, was overmatched against Benn, and after a knockout like this one should return to retirement before he gets hurt.

As for Conor Benn, Matchroom is starting to be cornered a bit as Benn doesn't appear ready for the top ten level fighters but is too advanced for the journeymen and fringe contenders at this time.

On AXS, which is what used to be  HD-Net, the initial card from Richard Schaffer's Probellum debuted with a rough production start (early on no sound) with crude graphics and a less than stellar on-air group and that's before the problems with the in-ring product.

The day before the fight, WBO bantamweight champion John Riel Casimero pulled out of his mandatory title defense against Paul Butler with "Gastric Distress:,

Casimero claimed he went to the hospital and the WBO quickly stated that unless Casimero produced medical records, he would be stripped of the title.

Fortunately, 44-year-old former champion Joseph Agbeko who somehow is still ranked was on-site and ready to replace Casimero against Butler for the "Interim" title with the promise of being elevated to the full titleholder, should Casimero be stripped.

That lasted for a few hours before Butler pulled out of the fight refusing to face Agbeko.

In the Probellum main event, Sunny Edwards outboxed his mandatory challenger Jayson Mama to win a dominant unanimous decision to retain his IBF flyweight title.

Edwards scored a flash knockdown in the eighth round for the only knockdown and cruised to an easy win (119-108 on my card) over the confused Mama, who had no idea on how to deal with the slickness of Edwards.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica outscored me five to four on these fights, my lead is at 167-150.

Boxing Challenge: Warrington-Lara clash early

     The rematch between featherweights Josh Warrington and Mauricio Lara ended just as the fight was beginning to heat up as the duo cracked their heads against the other in the second round with Lara emerging with a huge gash over his left eye.

When the ringside physician checked Lara's eye in the corner between rounds, the fight was stopped and ruled a no contest.

It was a disappointing ending as Warrington had fought very well in winning round one but Lara had managed to fight far better in the second and the fight seemed to be setting up to be a pretty good one.

Lara's cut is pretty severe and I'd be surprised to see him back in the ring by the end of the year and Eddie Hearn stated that he would like to keep Warrington active with a fight in December before bringing these two back for the third fight in February or March.

The co-feature saw undefeated welterweight Conor Benn dominate a surprisingly meek Adrian Granados in winning an easy unanimous decision over ten rounds.

Granados has been known for his toughness and eagerness to engage in losses to Adrien Broner and Shawn Porter among others but in this loss to Benn Granados looked more like Gullermo Rigondeaux than Rocky Balboa.

After a safety first effort like this, the attributes that that promoters and television liked from Granados may not be around anymore and he may see his offers for fights reduced.

As for Benn, he won every round on my card (and one judge) and he tried to make a more exciting fight in what was the best opponent of his to date.

Still, I still wonder how he will hold up against a strong opponent that fires back.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored two points for Conor Benn's win to move the season total to 122-108. 

Boxing Challenge: Benn stops Vargas in one, but Bridges hangs the star

  The boxing challenge opened Saturday afternoon with British welterweight prospect Conor Benn facing his toughest opponent in veteran trialhorse Samuel Vargas.

Vargas has never been a top welterweight and failed against the top fighters that he has faced such as Errol Spence, Amir Khan and in his latest fight, Vergil Ortiz, but he was still the toughest test that Benn had faced,

Still, the less I say about this one the better as a few combinations knocked Vargas into the ropes (which could have been ruled a knockdown), a few punches landed before a strong uppercut and the referee ended the fight after less than a minute and a half.

It's an impressive win for Benn, the son of former super middleweight champion Nigel Benn, but the early stoppage does take a bit of the shine off the win.

Ramon Malpica and I each earned one point in the boxing challenge for the Benn victory, but the bigger story for me was the undercard and a women's division fight that not only had interesting buildup, but backed it up in the ring.

I haven't been interested in women's boxing.

Not because I dislike women's sports really, I just haven't had a reason to care.

The fighters haven't had personalities that grabbed you in a way that wanted to make you root for them or for them to be defeated, and the biggest problem has been the lack of explosive punchers that give fans such excitement.

The best in the sport haven't done either- as the top two pound for pound fighters have stopped few opponents (Katie Taylor 6 of 17 and Claressa Shields 2 of 11) and other than Amanda Serrano ( 29 of 40), none of the other top fighters have many stoppage wins either.

The personality issue has been an issue that is just as difficult to tackle as other than an occasional Shields twitter rant, the sport has been more Bob Backlund than Hulk Hogan in promotion and it has shown in interest.

And then two fighters grabbed my attention and made me want to watch.

DAZN places about every possible event to an upcoming card of theirs on their service and they began dropping a few videos on a fight between England's Shannon Courtenay and late replacement Ebanie Bridges of Australia.

Many of the media, far more knowledgable than I on female boxing, criticized Bridges qualifications (5-0, but against very limited competition) for a title fight (the vacant WBA bantamweight title) and dismissed her as a pretty face that was doomed for failure against the better-known Courtenay.

Since I had never heard of Bridges, it was easy to push another fight to not watch on a day scheduled to be boxing loaded aside.

However, then the press conference and the DAZN faceoff (think of how HBO used to put two fighters together across a table and let them go) really made me interested in the pairing.

Bridges was charming, yet with a wink that showed she's in on the gag of boxing promotion and with the ability to not take herself seriously, the 34 year old math teacher had the looks and mouth to sell a fight, but what would happen in the ring?

After all, it's one thing to hook someone into watching, it's another to keep them there with the skills in the ring, so I wasn't really sure what to expect from Bridges (or Courtenay for that matter) and whether this would be a real fight or something similar to the Mia St.John sideshows years ago.

And when the bell rang?

We got a great fight, the best fight of the day, and while Jaron Ennis's knockout of Sergey Lipinets (Post later today) was the performance of the day, it was Ebanie Bridges that stole this Saturday for me.

Bridges moved, threw punches that were meant to hurt rather than only score points, never stopped chugging forward, and survived a ninth round that would have finished many fighters (male or female) and battled through a swollen shut left eye that I've seen more heralded fighters with far stronger resumes surrender through a lesser eye injury through ten rounds.

I scored the fight 5-5 and a draw, so Courtenay winning a close decision wouldn't have been a robbery had the judges scored it 6-4 as one judge did.

But in typical boxing fashion, the other two judges had ridiculous 8-2 scorecards and showed again that a fighter on the road better dominate or they aren't getting the nod.

In the end, this fight wasn't about one of a thousand title belts or even another questionable scorecard that boxing never seems to deal with.

After all, bad scorecards are howled about for the evening or even the week, and then we move onto the next week and the next awful judging exhibition.

Peel back the easy superficial take with Ebanie Bridges and look deeper than the looks and image, she has the heart that champions possess- watch rounds nine and ten with her left eye that reminded me of the famous photo of Carmen Basilio's eye after his second fight with Sugar Ray Robinson, and tell me that she doesn't have it.

Shannon Courtenay may have won the fight and title, but champions come and go with the wind.

True fighters and their efforts of the heart last far longer in the heart and minds of boxing fans and historians and Ebanie Bridges showed that she belongs in the company of the most courageous.

I'll be watching her again. She's made a fan.

And that's something that I wouldn't have thought I'd type at this time yesterday. 

Back later with a look at the Smith-Vlasov and Ennis-Lipinets fights from Saturday night.