Not so Boxing Challenge: Inoue, Nakatani notch wins

    It comes too late to be, but I wanted to write before it was too late. The biggest fight in Japanese history appears to be on the horizon, but not without some difficulty in Riyadh.

In the main event, undisputed world junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue retained his four titles with a dominant unanimous decision over mandatory contender Alan David Picasso.

No knockdowns scored with the champion winning by scores of 120-109, 119-109 (my score), and 117-111.

Former unified bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani made his junior featherweight bow a successful one. Still, he had to battle for it, as Nakatani barely repelled the unexpectedly firm challenge of Sebastian Hernandez by a close but unanimous decision.

Lots of action, and Nakatani's left eye was swollen shut by the end of the bout.

Scores of 115-113 on two cards (and mine) with the third an absurd 118-110 all for Nakatani.

Inoue and Nakatani are expected to meet in the spring at the Tokyo Dome for Inoue's titles in the biggest All-Japanese fight in the nation's history.

The other fight took place in Japan, where Masamichi Yabuki retained his IBF flyweight title with a final-round knockout of former light flyweight champion Felix Alvarado.

Yabuki scored knockdowns in the eleventh and twelfth rounds to cement the win.

Boxing Challenge: Janibek, Edwards retain titles

 Only two bouts in the boxing challenge this weekend and next weekend will be even lighter as rival promoters kept cards on the November 19th date to not challenge the expected Errol Spence-Terence Crawford superfight that was unable to reach an agreement between the two camps.

Saturday night from Las Vegas, Top Rank, and ESPN+ offered the first championship defense of the so-called "Boogieman" Janibek Alimkhanuly's WBO middleweight title that he was promoted to after Demetrius Andrade vacated the championship to move to 168 pounds rather than face Alimkhanuly.

Alimkhanuly retained his title by unanimous decision over unheralded Briton Denzel Bentley but he looked far from a champion that anyone is avoiding in defeating Bentley, who had been knocked out in three rounds by the best fighter that he had faced in Felix Cash.

Alimkhanuly won handily (116-112 x 2 and 118-110, which seemed a bit harsh to Bentley) with my score of 116-112 giving Bentley a few of the middle rounds when he took advantage of Alimkhanuly's taking a few rounds off.

Bentley put up a good performance in a fight that he was brought in to make Alimkhanuly look spectacular but never was a serious threat to Alimkhanuly, who finished strongly and hurt Bentley in the final round.

Perhaps Alimkhanuly overlooked Bentley and took him lightly but after wins over former minor champions Hassem N'Dam and Rob Brant and a blowout win over another Brit in Danny Dignum. it was understandable to expect a better performance.

Alimkhanuly doesn't appear likely to have a unification fight in his future against WBA and IBF champion Gennady Golvokin (both are countrymen) or WBC titleholder Jermall Charlo (PBC) but Jaime Munguia (Golden Boy) can have the fight whenever he wishes.

However, Munguia's promoter has been reticent in Munguia accepting the opportunity against Andrade and I haven't seen signs that they are in any hurry for their man to fight anyone that will hold their hands up and fight back., which would eliminate Alimkhanuly as well.

One thing is certain, Alimhanuly's performance didn't scare anyone away- if there was anyone interested in fighting him to start with.

On Friday from Sheffield, England, Sunny Edwards held off the late-round comeback of former WBA and IBF light flyweight champion Felix Alvarado to win a close unanimous decision to retain his IBF flyweight title.

Edwards used his smooth boxing skills to frustrate the constantly in-motion Alvarado in winning most of the early and middle rounds to build a huge lead on the scorecards before he tired after the eighth round as the bodywork and aggression began to pay dividends for Alvarado as he swept through those rounds to hammer the tiring champion.

However, Alvarado's comeback wasn't enough to overcome the number of rounds that Edwards had earned earlier in the bout with Edwards winning by scores of 116-112 and 115-113 x 2 (same as my card).

Edwards had been calling for WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez in recent months but has changed his tune since Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez gave up his WBC junior bantamweight title to return to the flyweight division, where Rodriguez is preparing to face Cristian Gonzalez for the WBO 112 pound championship that was vacated by Junto Nakatani last month.

However, both Martinez and Rodriguez are promoted by Eddie Hearn and Matchroom, and Edwards along with his brother Charlie, a former flyweight king, have feuded with Hearn in the past.

Edwards is promoted by Probellum, which means that Edwards couldn't enter the United States for a fight due to the sanctions against Probellum's former benefactor Daniel Kinahan, and could make a difficult fight to sign even harder.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 188 Pts (3)

Ramon Malpica: 162 Pts (4)

Vince Samano: 152 Pts (0)

Boxing Challenge: Garcia knocks out Campbell!

   The 2021 boxing challenge started earlier than normal with a critical lightweight eliminator that may have proven the worth of one of boxing's brightest prospects.

Ryan Garcia got up from the floor in the second round and then became the first fighter to stop Luke Campbell after cracking Campbell with a left hook to the liver that sent Campbell to the floor and took the ten count on the mat at American Airlines Arena in Dallas.

I had Garcia slightly ahead after six rounds at 57-56, but after Garcia hurt Campbell at the end of the fifth round, it was the younger fighter that was charging forward and was beginning to control the exchanges.

Ryan Garcia answered some questions but created others in the biggest win of his career.

Garcia proved that he can rebound from adversity and that his punching power is going to carry forward against top ten competition- if Garcia can land against you, he can take you out.

However, getting knocked down by Luke Campbell, who isn't known for his power, isn't a good sign for how Garcia will take the punches of heavier hitters such as Teofimo Lopez, Gervonta Davis, and even Devin Haney, and his defense will leave openings for him to get him more than he would wish.

All of the above-named fighters punch harder than Luke Campbell does and I do wonder how things will turn out when Garcia gets hit against those fighters and Garcia seemed to be a bit slow with his footwork and that could make him susceptible to quicker boxers.

There are still questions to be answered, but Ryan Garcia took his first step towards being a champion.

In the co-feature, Roger Gutierrez avenged a stoppage loss to Rene Alvarado with a unanimous decision victory for a minor title.

Alvarado stopped Gutierrez in the eighth round and won the majority of the rounds in their rematch, but Gutierrez knocked Alvarado down twice in the third round with Alvarado barely surviving.

Alvarado took back control and seemed to be on his way to victory, but in the final round Gutierrez scored another knockdown of Alvarado and that would make the difference on the scorecards as each judge gave Gutierrez a 113-112 decision. Without the knockdown, Alvarado would have salvaged a draw as each judge gave more rounds to Alvarado (7-5), but the final knockdown accounted for the point separating the two.

Even with the three knockdowns, I still had Alvarado winning 113-112 (8-4 in rounds, minus three points for the knockdowns). 

Considering the action in the fight and the close decision, I'd suspect a third fight between the pair is likely to happen in the future.

Rene's twin brother Felix retained his IBF junior flyweight championship with a tenth round knockout of former IBF minimumweight champion DeeJay Kriel in another entertaining fight.

Alvarado knocked down Kriel in the second and fourth rounds, but Kriel's heart won the night as he continued to fight through the harder punches of the bigger man and even won some rounds before the punishment finally wore down Kriel, leaving the referee little choice but to end the fight with a battered Kriel against the ropes and taking punishment.

In the newest boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored two points on the card.