Boxing Challenge: Akhmadaliev, Fundora Upset!

     The DAZN and Showtime portions of the boxing Saturday were filled with action and with two massive upsets that will have large repercussions in two divisions in the near future.

Matchroom/DAZN's show from San Antonio featuring hometown hero Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez's attempt to drop a weight class and win his second world championship after vacating the WBC junior bantamweight title earlier this year.

Rodriguez was successful in winning the vacant WBO flyweight title but he was unable to stop a resilient Cristian Gonzalez and even worse suffered a broken jaw in the unanimous decision victory.

Gonzalez moved just well enough to frustrate Rodriguez and while Rodriguez never stopped chasing and landed plenty of punches, Rodriguez never hurt Gonzalez seriously.

I scored Rodriguez a 117-111 winner with the official scores reading 118-110,117-111 and 116-112.

The best fight of the evening was a stunning upset as double-digit underdog Marlon Tapales grabbed many of the early rounds and held off a late charge from Murodjon Akhmadaliev to win the WBA and IBF junior featherweight titles by a split decision.

Akhmadaliev started slowly and allowed Tapales to land his jab and looping right far too often in building a lead and it wasn't until the second half that Akhmadaliev began to step up his punch output.

When Akhmadaliev did, the fight was quite entertaining and Akhmadaliev generally got the better of the action but officially he waited too long with two judges giving Tapales a 115-113 edge for the upset.

Akhmadaliev won the other by a ridiculous 118-110 which was far too wide as I gave Akhmadaliev the win at 115-113.

As Tapales was a mandatory challenger, Akhmadaliev isn't owed a contractual rematch and may have to win an eliminator or two for an eventual try to regain his crown.

Featherweight Raymond Ford knocked down former WBO junior featherweight champion Jessie Magdaleno in the fourth and eleventh rounds and dominated the other rounds as well in winning an easy unanimous decision in a WBA eliminator.

Not much to say about this one other than Ford was the bigger, faster, and stronger fighter in winning the biggest fight of his career by scores of 119-107 x2 and 116-110, with my score agreeing at 119-107.

Magdaleno looks to be in a tough spot at being unable to make the weight at junior featherweight and is not strong enough to battle the best at 126 pounds.

Carson California was the site of the Showtime/PBC card for a strange evening of boxing led by an upset that changed the future of the junior middleweight division.

For six rounds, the 6'5 Sebastian Fundora was having a clear path to retaining his minor title and more importantly his spot at the top of the WBC ratings and an eventual shot at unified champion Jermell Charlo as he battered the face of Brian Mendoza in winning all six rounds on my card.

That would all change seconds into the seventh round as Mendoza countered an uppercut attempt from Fundora with an electric left hook that sent Fundora stumbling backward and as he tried to stay upright, Mendoza leaped into the space with a right and left that left Fundora on the floor for a stunning ten count.

The win gives Mendoza the minor title held by Fundora but more importantly, it will be Mendoza in a position to wait for the winner of Charlo's title defense against Tim Tszyu, assuming he could hold that spot until his turn arrives.

The upset was the second in a row for Mendoza, who knocked out former WBA and IBF champion Jeison Rosario in his previous bout, and while I'd rate him as a strong underdog against either Charlo or Tszyu, it could be that Mendoza is one of those stories that is finding lightning in a bottle at the perfect time in a career.

The co-feature saw an excellent action fight between junior welterweight prospect Brandun Lee and veteran Pedro Campa, who slammed the other with punches for the ten rounds with Campa's face looking the worse for wear but Campa landing the heavier punches.

Lee emerged with an unpopular unanimous decision by scores of 97-93, 98-92, and 99-91, all of which seemed far wide for my tastes.

I scored the fight even at 95 as a draw, so my beef isn't with Lee's win, just some awful judging.

Some of the shine from Lee has disappeared in his last few fights and I'm not sure he is championship caliber in a division that is filled with top boxers but he does make action fights and as long as he keeps winning, he'll get a chance eventually.

On the undercard, Gabriel Maestre forced former two-division champion Devon Alexander to surrender after three one-sided rounds.

Maestre didn't prove a lot in the victory as Alexander clearly needs to step into retirement.

I didn't add the opener of the Showtime telecast to the challenge as undefeated featherweights Luis Nunez and Christian Olivo started the show but I wanted to add to the ridiculous judging of the evening as Nunez won a unanimous decision that he didn't deserve by scores of an incredible 100-90, 98-92, and 97-93.

I scored Olivo a 97-93 victor and feel awful for him as he was robbed of a win that he deserved.

If there is any justice, PBC will set up a rematch as the fight was entertaining- hopefully with new judges.

Boxing Challenge 

TRS: 63 Pts (5)

Ramon Malpica: 59 Pts (6)

Vince Samano: 48 Pts (5)  

Boxing Challenge: Hamburglar arrives in Minneapolis

    The Saturday night card with three welterweight fights showed one thing- when it comes to boxing in loosely regulated states, nothing should surprise you.

In the main event, undefeated prospect Eimantas Stanionis was in the middle of a surprisingly salty battle with former WBA champion Luis Collazo in the fourth round when their heads collided.

When Collazo fell to the floor with a mild cut and was concussed, it didn't take much to see that this one was over.   

Had the fight lasted less than a minute longer, the ending would have moved to the scorecards but instead, the fight was ruled a no contest. 

That's too bad because even though that Stanionis was controlling the fight, Collazo was landing his share and going all out to make what he said was to be his final fight of a long career a good one.

Collazo stated that this was his final fight afterward, but this is boxing and that can change on a dime.

As for Stanionis, he appears to be ready to face top ten competition and considering the talent that PBC owns at welterweight that could come very soon.

The middle fight was supposed to be the coming-out party for two-time Olympian Gabriel Maestre for another WBA minor title.

Maestre's original opponent, another former Olympian Cody Crowley, dropped out due to Covid-19 and was replaced by Mykal Fox, who had lost in his most recent fight to Lucas Santamaria who fought in the opening fight of the televised portion of the card.

The 6'4 Fox was expected to be broken down by Maestre, a supposed big puncher, but it was Fox the scored the only knockdown of the fight when he connected with a straight left in the second round.

I had Fox a 118-109 winner (10-2 with a knockdown) and it seemed like a formality for the decision for Fox.

Then the decision was announced 114-113  (which had me thinking someone saw this even other than the knockdown),115-112 (uh oh), and then 117-110- All for Maestre, and as I watched and uttered a loud profanity, Cherie (who could care less about boxing) asked: "How do you watch this again and again?"

I don't know dear but this is the worst decision of the year and while the current heat is on judge Gloria Martinez's 117-110 score and on some racist tweets that she has made in the past, where the heat should be is on Martinez's husband Ricardo Rizzo-obvious conflict of interest and Marcos Villegas, Fox's unofficial reporter, reports that a WBA official stood in Maestre's corner.

The WBA is the oldest sanctioning body in boxing and it's also the worst of the four organizations.

They bring nothing of value other than the best title belt and while the other three all have their issues, none of them bring the sewage-like quality of the WBA.

I'm planning a post on the bad points on each of the sanctioning bodies and what can they do to fix them should they have the desire to along with why the WBA is truly the worst of them all.

In a dull opening match, the aforementioned Santamaria won a unanimous decision over former junior welterweight and welterweight champion Devon Alexander.

It was an awkward mix in styles but evenly matched over the first half of the fight before Santamaria controlled the final few rounds to win a boring affair 96-94 on my card.

Alexander's not a totally shot fighter, but he was never a puncher and he's lost that slickness that once made him a champion.

Now he just shuffles forward, throws pitty-pat shots that don't deter the opponent, and might be best suited to consider retirement.

In the boxing challenge, I scored three points to Ramon Malpica's one to extend my lead to 108-94 in the season standings.

Boxing Challenge: Smith Dazzles in NYC

With all of the massive repercussions from Andy Ruiz's victory over Anthony Joshua to take away three of the four heavyweight titles, I am only now getting around to the other three fights in the weekend boxing challenge.

In the co-feature at Madison Square Garden, the best super middleweight in the world also made an American debut, although the United States bow for Callum Smith was far more spectacular than that of Anthony Joshua as Smith blew away Hassan N'Dam in only three rounds to retain his WBA 168 pound title.
Smith scored a knockdown in each of the three rounds and N'Dam, who hit the floor six times in a loss to Peter Quillin and another four in his loss to David Lemieux, was overmatched from the opening bell.
You had the feeling that this was the type of fight that fighters can be seriously hurt in with a bigger and stronger fighter like Smith against a too gutsy for his own good N'Dam, who would continue to beat the count with each knockdown and take a prolonged beating, so the referee's stoppage was a very good one.
Smith, who appears to have only one possible fight inside the division that would be really interesting (I think David Benavidez against Smith would be very interesting, should his out of the ring problems be in the past) has been rumored as a potential opponent for Canelo Alvarez, should the Canelo third fight against Gennady Golovkin fall through later this year.
Smith's younger brother (Liam) lost to Canelo a few fights back, but Callum is bigger and stronger than Canelo and should that be held in England, which has been floated as a possibility, I'd think Smith has a pretty fair chance of winning that fight.

PBC's card from San Jacinto, California saw a surprise in the main event as Ivan Redkach, who had struggled at 135 and 140 pounds of late after receiving early notice as a prospect, stunned former two-division champion Devon Alexander by scoring three sixth-round knockdowns and finishing a badly buzzed Alexander then and there.
Alexander led slightly on my card (48-47) in five predictably sludgey rounds in typical Alexander style filled with bumps, nudges, and grabs before an uppercut that drove Alexander out of his crouch (I've been screaming for years for Alexander opponents to do that!) and a chopping left that reminded me of a Tim Witherspoon style right and sent Alexander face first to the mat.
Give Alexander credit, he got up from what looked to be a candidate for knockout of the year, but the fight was essentially over then and there with the following two knockdowns as simple formalities leading up to the official end.
I'm not sure what this means for Redkach, who disappointed as a lightweight prospect and seems a bit small to defeat top welterweights, other than he'll likely receive a few more fights with PBC, but for Alexander, who I thought defeated Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto only to be given a draw and a split decision loss, it might be time to pack it in.
Much was made of the replacement of longtime trainer Kevin Cunningham in favor of Roy Jones for Alexander and it wasn't Jones that crumbled under that uppercut, so he's not to blame for the loss, it simply might be Alexander's time.

The co-feature was a predictably boring middleweight bout as Willie Monroe Jr outboxed Hugo Centeno via unanimous decision.
The less said about this the better (I had Monroe winning 96-94), but about the only interesting part of this fight where the post-fight interview with Monroe with Jordan Hardy saw Monroe call out (sigh) Jermall Charlo, where an excited (for some reason) Hardy breathlessly commented: "Hopefully we'll see that one soon!".
Oh brother, so that means that should Charlo-Monroe happen before the end of the year (with PBC, that's not a guarantee) after a projected Charlo win over Brandon Adams, Over a three year span after Charlo's knockout of Julian Williams, which is really Charlo's only top-notch victory, Jermall Charlo's opponents after moving to middleweight are: Jorge Heiland, Hugo Centeno, Matt Korobov, Brandon Adams and Willie Monroe.
Not exactly a way to create excitement around your fighter.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica scored four points to my two (two points each for Callum Smith and Willie Monroe, while I added only Smith's points) to trim the lead to 137-124.

Boxing Challenge: Alvarez storms through the Krusher

The boxing challenge rumbled into the Northeast on Saturday with a five-bout slate split between Atlantic City and the renovated Nassau Coliseum in Long Island and at the end of the evening, there was one fighter that clearly was the star of the weekend- and he did it without winning a round.

In an upset that some thought could happen, but that few thought would occur in this fashion- Eleider Alvarez scored three knockdowns on Sergey Kovalev out of nowhere in the seventh round and stripped Kovalev of not only his WBO light heavyweight title but also his fearsome demeanor and possibly even his career.
I thought Kovalev had won every round and seemed to be on his way to a lopsided win over the long-time WBC number one contender that champion Adonis Stevenson had spent almost three years avoiding.
One right hand changed all of that and three knockdowns later, the immediate future of the 175-pound division was gone as a Kovalev-Dmitry Bivol unification bout in December was gone.
There is a rematch clause and Kovalev winning all the rounds gives "Krusher" backers hope for a second battle, but this is a huge shot for the light heavyweight division in the short-term.
Alvarez, this KO aside, is not a big puncher and being promoted by Canada's Yvon Michel, who has managed his man Adonis Stevenson away from challengers for years, makes things even more confusing for his future.
As for Kovalev, he did answer some questions about his heart from the Andre Ward fight, as he rose from each knockdown and tried gallantly to fire back and survive, but he still was knocked out by a contender that had never knocked a top ten contender at 175 ( worn-out former super middleweight champion Lucien Bute doesn't count) out and isn't a draw even in his adopted country.

The co-feature from HBO saw Dmitry Bivol retain his WBA title via a unanimous decision over Issac Chilemba.
I haven't been able to watch this fight yet, so no scoring from my card.
Bivol has made some noise about fighting Alvarez in the same December unification bout planned for Kovalev, but after what has been reported to be a workmanlike, but nothing special effort for Bivol.

PBC wasted another national television platform on Fox with three less than thrilling fights.
In the main event of faded former welterweight champions, Andre Berto won a surprising split decision over Devon Alexander at the renovated (Praise the Lord for that fixup project from the home of Circulatory Socks) Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.
Alexander gave away some rounds late, but scored the fight's only knockdown in round three and won going away on my card 116-111.
Berto now gives us the gift of yet another undeserved PBC title shot in which the net result is a one-sided beatdown and waste of the viewers time.
Alexander has to feel snake bitten as for the second fight in a row (This loss and a draw with Victor Ortiz), the judges took away a deserved decision victory.

Former WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin dominated super middleweight J'Leon Love and won a clear unanimous decision as the co-feature.
It wasn't a fun fight to watch as Quillin walked Love down, as Love did little other than bounce around the ring and generated little offense.
Quillin might be an interesting name to see as an opponent for WBC champ David Benavidez or IBF kingpin Jose Uzcategui on a future PBC card, especially Uzcategui, who may be looking for an opponent with the injury to mandatory Caleb Plant pushing that fight back until late 2018 or early 2019.
I had Quillin winning 99-91.

The first fight saw Sergey Lipinets struggle to a majority decision win in his welterweight bow against trialhorse Erick Bone.
I agreed with one judge at 95-95, but the remaining judges had their cards filled out before the fight with ridiculous cards of 99-91 and 98-92, which were insulting to the effort of Bone.
Lipinets might be better served to stay at junior welter, where he made a strong effort in his loss to Mikey Garcia earlier this year.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica gained two points on me in the boxing challenge as he scored five points to my three.
Ramon added two points each from the Quillin and Bivol wins and one from the victory by Lipinets.
I scored one point for each of the above victories.
The challenge now stands at 120-97.

Boxing Challenge:Groves exposes Eubank and Hamburglar Alert!

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The boxing challenge was similar to the last two weekends in boxing as there may have been a large number of bouts domestically, but once again it was the World Boxing Super Series without an American television home stealing the show from a live stream.

The WBSS moved to their first semi-final in the super middleweight division with a sizable amount of interest in an all-UK faceoff with both the WBA title and a berth in the finals on the line as George Groves earned the biggest victory of his career with a unanimous decision over Chris Eubank. Jr.

The choice in this bout was one of the hardest for me to make in quite a while as both fighters had reasons to pick them and pick against them and despite my rooting for Groves through the years, I had concerns about him winning on the big stage and hesitantly selected Eubank.
I was happy to be wrong in this case as Groves used his jab to control the fight's tempo and distance, befuddling Eubank and leaving him frustrated and settling for wild shots that found air more often than Groves.
Eubank did hurt Groves in the final round after Groves suffered a separated shoulder (more on that soon) and showed signs of the power that made him a betting favorite, but Groves hung on and took a clear decision (117-111 on my card) and a trip to the finals.
The shoulder injury to Groves does throw a wrinkle into the tournament plans for the finals as it is unlikely to see Groves be ready to make a return to the ring by June 2nd on the planned date for the finals against next week's winner of the Callum Smith-Jurgen Braehmer tilt.
As for Eubank, he showed the same lack of discipline that he did in his only previous loss to Billy Joe Saunders and looked to be a fighter looking for his identity in the ring.

We move back across the Atlantic for five challenge bouts on two networks from PBC and yet another mostly disappointing evening.
PBC started with a two-fight show that ran way long since a scheduled squash match for talented prospect Carlos Balderas surprisingly lasted the four round distance and the result of that decision saw the PBC running competition against itself for a while.

The main event wasn't as bad as it could have been considering that it matched the continuing comeback of Devon Alexander against the usually excuse-filled performances from Victor Ortiz.
It was not only scheduled for 12 rds instead of the standard 10, I was shocked to see the WBC sanctioned this as a title eliminator since Alexander had won just once in his comeback and Ortiz hasn't had a win over a contender in years.
It was better than expected, mainly because despite being decisively outboxed and having his eye puffed, Alexander wasn't a banger in his prime and the sometimes soft Ortiz hung in there likely because he wasn't getting seriously hurt.
As the Showtime card started and this fight moved on, it appeared that the only question for the judges was the margin for Alexander as watchers prepared to move to Showtime.
I didn't have many questions as I saw Alexander a huge 118-110 winner, but it was time to bring out the Hamburglar as the cards were stunning at 115-113 for ORTIZ!? with two more at 114-114 for a majority decision draw and the early favorite for the awful decision of the year.
I suppose it wouldn't be a Victor Ortiz fight without something odd happening and say what you will about Ortiz in the ring-the happenings are never dull when Ortiz is around.

The other fight was really bad as Caleb Plant handily (119-109 on my card) won an IBF title eliminator over trialhorse Porky Medina to near a shot against new IBF champion Caleb Truax and the world's first ever all-Caleb world championship fight.
The less said about this the better and Plant is deadly dull to watch.

The drawn-out card on Fox caused me to miss most of the curtain raiser on Showtime as Yordanis Ugas won yet another eliminator in the welterweight division (there were three on the day) this one of the IBF variety with a seventh-round knockout of Ray (missing any sugar) Robinson.
I saw the knockout but missed the first six rounds, so no scoring on the Ugas victory.

The second bout saw a rematch of a fun fight from last year as David Benavidez defended his WBC super middleweight belt for the first time against the man he defeated for the vacant title-Ronald Gavril.
Benavidez had won a narrow split decision in their first fight, had claimed he was ill for that fight and wanted an immediate rematch to remove all doubt.
The doubt was removed as Benavidez dominated on his way to a unanimous decision that saw Gavril win the final round on my scorecard to avoid being shutout (119-109).
The talented 21-year-old champion dominated Gavril with his jab and proved that there would be no need for a third encounter any time soon.
I have a feeling that this time next year that we might be discussing David Benavidez and Gilberto Ramirez in a title unification bout as the latest big fight that boxing fans will miss out on due to the issues with promoters and networks...

The main event was one that I wasn't really excited about as Danny Garcia returned to the ring for the first time in nearly a year against the shopworn Brandon Rios in yet another welterweight eliminator, the second of the evening for the WBC.
If they had half as many title defenses as eliminators, Keith Thurman's nickname wouldn't be used as a metaphor for how often he fights!
Rios, a former Zabbie winner, had been fed journeyman Aaron Herrera last June for his first win since 2015 to revive his name to be fed to someone in the future,
Garcia had a mixed bag for the evening- the good news is that he knocked Rios out with a strong right that saw Rios rise but had the fight ended by referee Kenny Bayliss in the ninth round.
I had Garcia ahead 79-73 (7-1 in rounds) entering round nine and despite the protest of Rios for the fight being stopped, Rios clearly dropped his left and invited the Garcia right that ended a long night from the PBC, so he can only blame himself for a loss that frankly should give him pause of getting out of the business.
Rios is dreadfully slow and having his best days at lightweight, Rios lacks any pop remotely resembling his power at lower divisions, the time may be right for him to consider walking away.

The bad news for Garcia?
Danny was hit far more than he should be by someone of Rios' speed and you cannot blame that all on rust.
Garcia, even in his wins, hasn't been the same fighter at 147 as he was at 140 and now he's beginning to get hit more often?
I thought Garcia won almost every round, but Rios scored enough to hold some interest and I wonder if Garcia has seen his best fights in the back window?

The evening wrapped with one of those pro wrestling style shouting matches that seem to follow the PBC almost every telecast and especially when you have any combination of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter, and Garcia around.
These three constantly challenge each other for future matches, street fights, hot dog eating contests and whatever else floats their boat on that evening.
It's getting to the point that it's simply silly that these things constantly happen between the three and nothing seems to ever come of it.
It's tired, old and much of it seems to be poorly acted.
Here was a tweet of mine from last night about this situation and for the record-Thurman and Garcia are the first two named with Porter being the third.

PBC 147 problem-Three guys all roughly the same level,two of them with an over inflated opinion of their value and skills that aren't really interested in top fights. The 3rd will fight almost anyone, but is a hair less talented- None of them want any part of @ErrolSpenceJr

— R.S (@ThoughtsofRS) February 18, 2018

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 6-4 on the night and moved my overall lead to  22-18.
I scored two points each on wins by David Benavidez and Caleb Plant with one point wins from Danny Garcia and Yordanis Ugas.
Ramon added two points for Benavidez with one each from Plant and Garcia.

Hoping to have an episode of Fightheads this week on the podcast to talk about these fights and next weekend's fight in the World Boxing Super Series and finally a good card coming from HBO!!