Boxing Challenge: Beterbiev barrels over Smith

     Artur Beterbiev was expected to have a difficult evening defending his WBC, IBF, and WBO light heavyweight championships against former WBA super middleweight champion Callum Smith in Quebec City with even more at stake than his three belts.

It wasn't as the usually slow-starting Beterbiev aggressively bullied Smith from the beginning of the fight and never stopped in delivering a punishing attack that left Smith swollen and bruised around both eyes and knocking him down for the first time in his career with Smith hitting the mat twice in the seventh round before Smith's trainer Buddy McGirt entering the ring to surrender for his fighter honorably.

Smith did have some success hitting Beterbiev but the punches didn't have any effect and they could not slow the attack of the thirty-nine-year-old Russian native, now a Canadian citizen.

Beterbiev looked terrific in grinding the gallant Smith down. The win should see the long-hoped-for unification fight between Beterbiev and WBA champion Dmitry Bivol in the summer in Saudi Arabia.

The Beterbiev-Bivol fight is so intriguing because you can make a legitimate case for Betebiev breaking Bivol down or Bivol brilliantly outboxing Beterbiev for twelve rounds.

Super middleweight contender, Christian Mbilli battered Rohan Murdock before Murdock's corner stopped the fight after round six.

Murdock gave all he had and tried bravely but took the full arsenal of the varied offense of Mbilli and took far too much punishment than he deserved.

Mbilli looks to be ready for the best in the division and I'd give him a live chance against any of the top fighters at 168, which includes Canelo Alvarez and David Benavidez.

The best fight of the night saw Jason Moloney retain his WBO bantamweight title with a hard-fought majority decision over Saul Sanchez.

The fight was a bit marred by several clashes of heads on the inside, cutting Moloney in the early rounds and leaving both men bloody by the end of the fight, with several strong battles in the trenches.

Several close rounds could go to either fighter, so my score of 115-113 for Sanchez was the outlier on the cards of 114-114 and 116-112 x2 for Moloney.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 10 Pts (5) 

Ramon Malpica: 9 Pts (5)

Vince Samano: 2 Pts (1) 

Boxing Challenge: Alimkhanuly Dominates- Hamburglar Alert in Vegas.

  The boxing weekend would see a champion with something to prove and two championships to be claimed by challengers hoping to prove their worth with excellent outings.

One of those fighters succeeded, another did well enough to win, and a third may have proven that he may be the most fortunate fighter in the sport.

In Stockton, California from ESPN/Top Rank, WBO middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhnauly rebounded from an average effort in his previous fight to destroy undeserving Canadian challenger Steven Butler in two rounds.

The buildup for this one was based around Alimkhanuly's off-night against Denzel Bentley, whether he would return to form, and his Golovkin-like status as the man that is too good to face for such little reward, while Butler, a fighter without a win against a contender in his career and having been stopped in all three of his defeats, was the "only man willing to step up".

Butler may have been willing to step up but even in what may be an historically weak time for the middleweight division, Butler wasn't deserving of a top ten rating or a championship challenge and it showed as after a slow first round, Alimkhanuly knocked Butler down three times in the second for a quick and brutal end to a mismatch.

The fight was essentially over after the first knockdown and give Butler credit for trying to survive but it could have been stopped after the second knockdown and no one would have complained.

This fight didn't prove anything other than Alimkhanuly is usually going to walk through fringe contenders, there still isn't a big fight waiting for him, and boy is the 160-pound division in awful shape.

The co-feature was expected to be the best matchup of the weekend but it didn't deliver as Jason Moloney won the vacant WBO bantamweight title with a majority decision win over Vincent Astrolabio.

Moloney was content to counterpunch and move just enough to keep the harder puncher Astrolabio off balance, which had the desired effect as Astrolabio simply wasn't aggressive enough to offset Moloney's boxing.

I had Moloney a 116-112 winner, which was the same as one card with the others scoring 115-113 for Moloney and even at 114-114.

I thought Moloney deserved the win but the ESPN crew seemed to have Moloney far ahead and I saw a different fight than they did but they could have been zoning out listening to Andre Ward talk about the obligations of fighters, how much he cares and money ZZZZZZ.

Ordinarily, the hypocrisy of Andre Ward would receive more time here but the "main event" from Showtime/PBC in Las Vegas was even worse for boxing.

Take Rolando Romero, he of the fast mouth, wild punches, and even slower hands and his previous form.

Romero "won" a minor lightweight title in one of the worst decisions seen in years over Jackson Marinez ( Marinez would be knocked out in his next two fights by both Richard Commey and Frank Martin), defeated journeyman Avery Sparrow and fringe contender Anthony Yigit to parlay that into a big fight against Gervonta Davis, where he was stopped in six generally rounds.

Romero then doesn't fight for almost a year (two weeks shy), is handed a title fight against Alberto Puello without ever fighting in the junior welterweight division, and then rather than fight Batyr Akhmedov, who was fighting on the undercard, for the title stripped from Puello for PED use, Romero receives forty-year-old Ismael Barroso for the vacated championship.

Barroso, who had never defeated a championship contender and had lost by knockout to his two best opponents (Anthony Crolla and Akhmedov), seemed to be yet again another "lucky" draw for Rolando Romero dealt to him by his promoters (Al Haymon) and the always lovable WBA.

The stage was set for Romero to win a title that he shouldn't be fighting for in the first place against an aging opponent that isn't of title caliber but Barroso appeared to be throwing a wrench into the plan by knocking Romero down in the third round, reducing Romero to wild swipes amid chases around the ring, and building a lead on the scorecards that short of a few knockdowns, Barroso was likely to hold.

Romero does try in the ninth round to throw some heavy shots as he has to know he's losing (Believe it or not, all three judges had Barroso ahead, which knowing boxing was a surprise to me), and in his aggressiveness throws a punch/shove/crosscheck that sends Barroso to the mat, which referee Tony Weeks calls a knockdown.

Barroso rises unhurt but now knows he's on the verge of losing a 10-8 round so with Romero attacking, Barroso countering, and neither landing much or hurting the other- Tony Weeks leaps in and ends the fight to a stunned Romero hometown crowd, who know what has happened here.

Romero gets a title (and the biggest race at the PBC offices will be who can lock up the first chance at Rolando Romero) and Barroso, who at forty years old and fighting the fight of his career, is screwed as even if he is able to land an immediate rematch (short of the WBA demanding it, that's not happening) , considering his age, he's unlikely to repeat how well he fought against Romero.

As for Tony Weeks, we may have seen his Joey Curtis moment.

Joey Curtis was a well-respected referee in Nevada boxing in the 70s and 80s and he was the third man for 1982's WBA heavyweight title bout between Mike Weaver and Michael Dokes.

Dokes dropped Weaver seconds into the fight, Weaver got up and as Dokes missed every punch of a combination, Curtis stopped the fight after only sixty-three seconds and never worked a major fight after that.

I'm not saying Tony Weeks will never referee again but I think we've seen the beginning of his descent from the top fights in the sport.

I haven't had the time to watch the co-feature, which was a WBA eliminator in the junior welterweight division (and the organization that now has Rolando Romero as its champion in the division) as Kenneth Sims defeated Batyr Akhmedov in what everyone reports as a very entertaining fight by majority decision.

Boxing Challenge 

TRS: 80 Pts (5)

Ramon Malpica: 75 Pts (5)

Vince Samano:61 Pts (5)

Boxing Challenge: Haney retains, Wilder returns

   The boxing Saturday is going to have to carry the next two weeks in the sport as the schedule lightens until the final weekend of the month but the world lightweight championship was at stake and the return of a former heavyweight champion in desperate need of a spectacular win, so it was more than adequate to help boxing fans make it to the end of the month.

In Melbourne, Australia, Devin Haney retained his world lightweight championship with a unanimous decision in his rematch with George Kambosos.

I'll sum this fight up in this manner, George Kambosos tried harder, fought better, and the rematch was a more exciting fight and none of it mattered because Devin Haney dominated equally as much as in their first affair, winning a unanimous decision by scores of 119-109 and two tallies of 118-110.

I scored Haney the easy winner at 118-110.

Haney landed his jab at will and ripped Kambosos with counter rights that caused Kambosos to bleed impressively from a cut over his left eye that Kambosos had to fight through along with a cut over his right eye, which was cut from a late clash of heads that cut Haney as well.

It was a needed step for Haney to complete his obligation to Kambosos for a rematch few outside of Australia wanted to see and move on to an anticipated fight against Vasyl Lomachenko, should Lomachenko win his fight over Jamaine Ortiz in two weeks.

Haney may not be the most exciting fighter but he is so technically sound and considering that many with such skills are dreadfully dull, I think Haney isn't dull by any means.

Haney will likely move to junior welterweight after a potential defense against Lomachenko and he should fit in very well in a loaded 140-pound division.

In the co-feature bantamweight, Jason Moloney moved himself into the WBC mandatory challenger position with a unanimous decision over Nawaphon Kaikanha in an eliminator.

Moloney won by scores of 119-109 and 118-110 twice, which was the same score as mine.

Moloney will likely be involved in 2023 for the title expected to be vacated by Naoya Inoue after Inoue unifies (expected to anyway) all four bantamweight belts against Paul Butler (WBO champion) in December.

Inoue knocked out Moloney in seven rounds in October 2020 to retain the WBA and IBF titles and Inoue has since added the WBC belt to his collection.

In Brooklyn, New York, former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder returned to the ring for the first time since his second loss to Tyson Fury and won his first fight since November 2019 with a first-round knockout of Robert Helenius in a WBC eliminator.

It only took one concussive right from Wilder, who landed it as Helenius pressed the action, trapping Wilder in a corner before he ran into the counter bomb.

Helenius was never in danger of getting up and once again, Deontay Wilder shows that for all the flaws in his game that there may not be a bigger puncher in all of boxing for one shot power and if you make one mistake the fight could end.

Wilder will now fight in another WBC eliminator to decide the mandatory challenger for champion Tyson Fury against fellow PBC boxer and former champion Andy Ruiz in what could be a very interesting match

I haven't seen the undercard fights but I have seen the one-punch knockout by former IBF super middleweight champion Caleb Plant over former WBC champion Anthony Dirrell in the ninth round and give Plant credit for ending conclusively a fight that reports say was a very boring first eight rounds.

While it was an incredible knockout, Plant's behavior in pantomiming a gravedigger shoveling dirt on a still-fallen Dirrell was in very poor taste.

I've never been a Plant fan but this was beyond awful after a devastating knockout with the opponent still down and his safety unknown at the time.

For all of Plant's title defenses and Dirrell's shopworn condition ( and Dirrell should now consider retirement with a record of 1-2-1 over his last four fights with the draw being very questionable against Kyrone Davis and being stopped by Plant and David Benavidez), Dirrell is the best name on his resume' and I'd love to see Plant against David Benavidez next.

However. Benavidez will face Jose Uzcategui in January in a fight few want to see.

Ironically, Uzcategui, a former IBF champion, was the biggest win in Caleb Plant's career with Plant winning the title from him in January 2019.

Heavyweight Frank Sanchez stopped veteran Carlos Negron in nine rounds and in a mild surprise former IBF bantamweight champion Emmanuel Rodriguez dominated Gary Antonio Russell in winning a unanimous decision after ten rounds in a WBA and IBF eliminator.

Rodriguez was fighting Russell for the second time after their first fight ended after sixteen seconds after the two smashed their heads together and it was a head clash that ended this after the two collided in the ninth round with the fight being stopped a few seconds into the tenth to go to scorecards.

Rodriguez knocked Russell down in the eighth and won on all three cards convincingly at 100-90, 99-91, and 99-93 to likely be involved in one of the vacant title chases, should Naoya Inoue vacate next year.

Rodriguez was stopped in two rounds by Inoue, losing his IBF title in a World Boxing Super Series semi-final.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 175 Pts  (9)

Ramon Malpica: 151 Pts (9)

Vince Samano:140 Pts  (6)  

Boxing Challenge: Haney Handles Kambosos

    On a day that saw two young champions take a step toward stardom, Devin Haney and Stephen Fulton made the move upward with the best performances of their careers.

I'll be writing about the Showtime and DAZN cards in the next post in order to concentrate on Devin Haney's road victory over George Kambosos to unify all four championships in the lightweight division and hopefully stuff the WBC "franchise" championship into the trash for causing this mess to begin to with.

Haney's easy unanimous decision win by scores of 118-110 and 1160-112 (X2) (my score was 117-111 for Haney) may not have been the most aesthetically pleasing triumph in history for those watching and sitting through what has an excellent case for the worst pre-fight broadcast in boxing television history from ESPN but Haney's win was exactly what was needed to win against Kambosos and to do so by such control that the expected to be raucous Australian crowd was silenced for most of the bout.

Haney's offense was as basic as one could imagine but the Haney jab and one-two combination combined with just enough movement to avoid any punches were able to confound Kambosos, who rarely found his target and didn't resemble the tiger that invaded New York City to upset Teofimo Lopez last fall.

Kambosos wasn't nearly aggressive enough to trouble Haney as his wild right hand seldom hit the mark and even though Kambosos would land only one less power punch than Haney landed, the Haney jab was more than enough to carry the day and win a decision without dispute from even the most fervent Kambosos supporter.

Haney is contractually obligated to give Kambosos a rematch in the fall and again in Australia but few seem excited about a second bout considering this one wasn't either exciting or competitive.

Still, there is an obligation and Kambosos will almost surely activate that clause as he's unlikely to ever receive better terms down the road with another sizable paycheck and again fighting at home but he had both of those in this fight, and other than the paycheck those advantages didn't help him very much at all.

Haney established himself as a star with a great performance on the biggest stage of his career and should he defeat Kambosos in their rematch, Haney will hold the cards in the division with all four titles and with his move to Top Rank before the Kambosos match, Haney will have several big fights that would be relatively easy to make.

First on the list would have to be multiple division champion Vasyl Lomachenko, who would have been the person in the ring with Kambosos with both sides agreeing to a deal before Lomachenko stayed in his home country of Ukraine to defend against the recent invasion by Russia.

Assuming Lomachenko's issues in his native land will eventually be settled, Lomachenko would likely receive the first chance under the circumstances with the only question being whether or not Lomachenko would take a tuneup fight first or move straight to Haney.

The conqueror of Lomachenko and the surprising loser to Kambosos, Teofimo Lopez, has been rumored to be moving north to the junior welterweight division even before his win over Lomachenko and had he not lost to Kambosos, a pairing of the unified lightweight champion (disregarding the franchise issues) against the then unified junior welterweight kingpin Josh Taylor (Taylor has since been stripped of the WBA title for refusing to fight their mandatory challenger, the unbeaten, untested, and unknown Dominican Alberto Puello for a small purse after few were interested in bidding for the fight via purse bid) would have been very attractive before the luster was removed by Lopez's defeat.

Could Lopez be tempted to stay at lightweight for a full four title attempt against Haney, who Lopez had taunted via social media and tagged him with the term "Email champion" that only would go away after Haney's win this weekend?

The WBA still has a minor title in the division and despite the title meaning little, the fighter holding it certainly does with Gervonta Davis as the beltholder.

Davis has been criticized for his relatively weak competition and there are questions about when Davis's contract with Mayweather Promotions expires with some reports stating that it ended last week with Davis's knockout of Rolando Romero and yet others reporting that Davis has one year remaining on his contract.

Mayweather refuses to do business with Bob Arum and Top Rank, so a Haney-Davis fight would seem to be a long shot with the best hope coming from the WBA deciding that the time is right to end their lightweight mess and order Haney vs Davis and hope for the best- Don't hold your breath waiting for that to occur.

Ryan Garcia would be another big fight and his association with Golden Boy wouldn't be a hindrance to challenging Haney as Golden Boy has worked with Top Rank on several occasions.

And one other possibility with Top Rank eventually could be WBC and WBO junior lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson, should Haney hold off his challengers and Stevenson rises after his goal of unifying the junior lightweight division.

I'm not sure that I would pick Haney against all of those fighters but I'm not sure I'd wager against him either and after this win, Haney now owns the best resume' of the young stars in the division.

Devin Haney is the Email champ no more.

In the other two boxing challenge affairs from Melbourne, Jason Moloney stopped Aston Palicte in the third round of a ten rounder between two former world title challengers in a crossroads fight.

Moloney knocked Palicte down and quickly finished him off with seconds remaining in the round.

Moloney will likely hang around in the lower half of the top ten and likely appear in a title eliminator soon, while Palicte looked weaker in his new weight division and might be better suited to return to junior bantamweight.

Lucas Browne shocked Junior Fa with a first-round knockout in their ten rounder and juiced-up what appeared to be a fading career.

Browne had been stopped by Paul Gallen and David Allen in his previous four bouts and looked to be overmatched against Fa, who entered the fight with only one loss, a distance fight with former WBO champion Joseph Parker and had never shown signs of a weak chin.

Browne landed a huge right hand to drop Fa, who never was able to get his legs back under him after rising and Browne finished him off with a right hand that could have been close to being to the back of the head of Fa.

It wasn't an obvious foul but there may be enough evidence there to support a rematch that would likely give both fighters a solid purse perhaps on the Haney-Kambosos rematch card.

I'll be back with the review of the Showtime/PBC card and a world title explosively changing hands from Wales on DAZN.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 95 Pts (2)

Ramon Malpica; 78 Pts (1)

Vince Samano: 78 Pts (1) 

Boxing Challenge: One Punch Knockout Night for Davis,Inoue

  The boxing Saturday was filled with world title defenses, title contenders returning to the ring, and two of the most devastating one-punch knockouts that you'll see.

Let's start with the final card of the evening with PBC putting together a pay-per-view from San Antonio, Texas, and a fight that has been reported to be quite an action-packed affair.

Editors Note: As of this writing, I have not seen any of the PPV cards yet, so I'm just reporting the results. When I have a chance to see and score them, I'll come back and edit my scorecard with thoughts for posterity.

In the main event, Gervonta Davis took away Leo Santa Cruz's WBA junior lightweight title and kept his own minor title by a crunching sixth-round knockout that left Santa Cruz out cold for a period of time and will be a contender for knockout of the year.

The fight was noted to be fought on mostly even terms before the left uppercut (that I have seen!) that will threaten Alexander Povetkin's knockout of Dillian Whyte for the KO of the year.

Davis claims that he will keep both championships (Which I don't have an issue with if he can continue to make the weight), but in the past, the WBA has claimed that they will not allow a champion to hold two of their titles, but organizations in boxing tend to make these decisions on the fly and according to the fighter or promoters so who knows how the WBA will rule on this.

In the undercard matches.

Mario Barrios kept his minor title over Ryan Karl by 6th round knockout

Regis Prograis stopped Juan Heraldez in three rounds

Isaac Cruz knocked out Diego Magdaleno in the first round...

From London's television studio, Oleksander Usyk received what he was looking for from Derek Chisora- A good twelve-round test as a heavyweight and moved to the future with a unanimous decision victory.

Chisora started well in the first few rounds and had his moments late, but Usyk rallied after the early stages and banked rounds to build a solid lead on the scorecards.

No knockdowns, although Usyk did wobble Chisora a bit near the end of the seventh round.

I scored Usyk a 116-112 winner, so the verdict was a fair one.

Usyk is the mandatory contender in the WBO for champion Anthony Joshua, but could take step aside money for Joshua's unification fight with Tyson Fury, or should he refuse to move away, he could fight for a vacated title from Joshua.

The co-feature saw a mild upset as George Kambosos won a split decision over former IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby in an IBF lightweight eliminator to earn a mandatory title shot next year against Teofimo Lopez.

The thoughts were as wide as the scorecards as experts from England (Selby) and Australia (Kambosos) were each puzzled by a split decision and complained about the judges not favoring their man.

I thought Kambosos landed the harder punches against the smoother Selby and deserved a close call- 115-113 on my scorecard.

On ESPN Plus from the Las Vegas bubble, Top Rank featured the "Monster" Naoya Inoue in his debut for the company, and Inoue shined as hoped with a one-punch knockout of tough Australian contender Jason Moloney.

Moloney fought on almost even terms for the first three rounds, but Inoue began to land well in the fourth and fifth before a left hook sent Moloney to the mat in round six.

Inoue's right hand ended the fight in the seventh with a KO that would have received far more attention had Gervonta Davis not scored his highlight-reel knockout later in the evening.

Inoue could face WBO champion John Riel Casimero next in a unification fight that was scheduled earlier this year before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an untelevised bout, former cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev made his heavyweight debut with a first-round KO of Sefer Sefari.

Gassiev scored an early knockdown with Seferi rising unsteadily and the referee stopping the fight.

In the boxing challenge, I outscored Ramon Malpica 13-9 on the day and boosted my lead to 153-144.

Boxing Challenge: Moloney stops Baez

Australian bantamweight Jason Moloney managed to battle his way through the adversity of his twin brother Andrew's loss two days earlier in the "bubble" in Las Vegas and methodically broke down Leonardo Baez to earn a victory when Baez could not answer the bell for the start of the eighth round.

Moloney smothered Baez, a late replacement for Oscar Negron, from the start and didn't allow Baez to create the space that he needed to throw his longer punches from a distance to win.
Moloney's shorter shots and combinations connected time and time again until a battered Baez's corner decided to end the fight in the corner to save their fighter from more punishment.
Moloney is ranked in the top five by each of the four organizations and I would imagine that he would be an attractive challenger for the winner of the upcoming three belt indication between Naoya Inoue and John Riel Casimero later this year.

The co-feature was supposed to be the coming-out party for undefeated junior lightweight Abraham Nova and while Nova won a unanimous decision over Avery Sparrow, he looked far from impressive in doing it.
The light-punching Sparrow won most of the early rounds on my card but seemed to be winning these rounds more on awkwardness and a lack of punching from a somewhat confused Nova.
Nova took command late in the fight and on my card pulled it out by a close decision (96-94) before the scorecards that ranged from one that agreed with me, one at 97-93 that seemed a bit strong, and a totally ridiculous 99-91 that must have been filled about by Nova's family before the fight.
I could have seen 96-94 Sparrow, depending on when you thought Nova's rebound started, so the fight was close, but it certainly didn't raise the status of either fighter and I certainly have zero interest in a rematch with the lack of action in this one.
Steve Kim reports that Nova may be matched with former IBF champion Masayuki Ito by Top Rank in his next fight in a match that could possibly become a title eliminator.
Nova will need to show far more against Ito to win than he did in barely clipping Sparrow.

In the boxing challenge, I earned four points to Ramon Malpica's one for the evening to move my lead to 57-49.
The difference was the two points for the win by Abraham Nova and two points to Ramon's one for the stoppage win by Jason Moloney.