Boxing Challenge: Ioka outboxes Franco, Berlanga tops Quigley

    Matchroom Boxing and DAZN rolled out their much-ballyhooed signing in New York City with everything set for a spectacular debut and while Edgar Berlanga scored four knockdowns in his unanimous decision win over Jason Quigley, it was Quigley that emerged the hero after the final bell.

Put aside the four knockdowns (rounds three, five, and two in round 12) and this was an even fight.

In fact, if you used the old-school rounds system, where a close round won had equal weight on the cards as a round won with knockdowns, the fight would have been even on my card at six rounds apiece.

The fifth-round knockdown was clearly a poor call as Quigley stumbled to the floor and the third-round knockdown was fairly scored but Quigley suffered a flash knockdown rather than being hurt by Berlanga.

Still, you had to like Berlanga's final round where he showed the offensive style that made him such a hot prospect and the fire to try for a knockout but he couldn't take Quigley out, who had been knocked out in both his losses (Demetrius Andrade, Tureano Johnson) neither by fighters noted for their pop.

Berlanga won on scores that were bigger than I thought Quigley deserved at 118-106, and 116-108 times two, with my score for Berlanga at 114-109.

Quigley's grit served him well and he fought as well as he can fight, so he likely earned himself some more fights in the future against higher-profile opponents.

As for Berlanga, who signed with Matchroom with the thinking that would be the fastest path to a fight vs Canelo Alvarez, who then moved to PBC, Eddie Hearn has been talking up the prospect of Berlanga against Jaime Munguia, which would be a strong action battle and seemingly easy to make with both fighters affiliated with DAZN but Hearn and Munguia's promoter Oscar De La Hoya aren't exactly pals and unless the network extends the pressure on both companies to make the fight, it could be more difficult to put together than one would think.

The day started with a rematch of the New Year's Eve junior bantamweight unification draw between WBA champion Joshua Franco and then-WBO leader Kazuto Ioka from Tokyo, Japan.

Since then, Ioka vacated the WBO version in order to take the rematch against Franco rather than defend against his WBO mandatory, the dangerous puncher Junto Nakatani, and with the fight only with the WBA title at stake, Franco blew the weigh-in and lost the title on the scales.

Should Ioka win, he would claim the WBA title.

A Franco win or draw would result in the WBA title becoming vacant.

Most (including me) thought that Franco deserved the decision in their first fight and favored him in the rematch- Until Franco failed on weight.

Then you just had the feeling that Ioka might be more motivated and better prepared- to the point that Ioka became the favorite and he deserved to be as Ioka generally controlled the fight in winning a unanimous decision.

Scores read at 116-112 times two (mine as well) and 115-113 for Ioka, who cut Franco badly along the right eye in the fifth round after being cut Franco's effectiveness dropped off a bit although he did continue to try to reach Ioka but was unable to miss the Ioka uppercut that scored constantly.

Ioka could now pursue Junto Nakatani in what would again be a WBA-WBO unification match and more lucrative now for both boxers.

As for Franco, he announced his retirement after the loss, citing mental health issues.

While I don't want to question anyone's mental suffering as how would I know what anyone is truly going through, I do have concerns about more and more boxers discussing mental health issues.

Ryan Garcia, Jermall Charlo, Adrien Broner, and now Franco have talked about their issues and the two consistent themes have been fighter inactivity and problems with making weight.

What I wonder is- are fighters beginning to use mental health as an excuse for losing fights (in the ring or the scales) or does boxing's culture have a problem that has always existed but is only now beginning to find the light?

I hope it is the latter and not the former.

 Mental health is a serious issue and hopefully doesn't become a standard excuse for fighters that are disappointed with their ring performance.

Boxing Challenge 

TRS:105 Pts (7)

Ramon Malpica:96 Pts (6)

Vince Samano: 77 Pts (5) 

Boxing Challenge: Andrade Annilates Quigley

     The DAZN card from Manchester, New Hampshire played according to plan as the heavy favorites both scored dominant victories and as is usual in boxing, had a disappointment in the third pairing.

In the main event, Demetrius Andrade did what champions are supposed to do with overmatched challengers- dismiss them quickly and Andrade did just that in his second round knockout of Jason Quigley to defend his WBO middleweight title.

Andrade knocked Quigley down in the first and two more times in the second with referee Arthur Mercante Jr.ending the fight after the second knockdown.

Andrade will hopefully receive a bigger fight than a undeserving challenger such as Quigley and he called out all the right names but I still think getting any of those are unlikely.

Still, Andrade has made the first step to getting those fights in not allowing his opponents to survive longer than they should.

M.J. Akhmadaliev won every round in retaining his WBA and IBF junior featherweight titles over late replacement Jose Velasquez.

Akhmadaliev showed every tool in his kit except for power as he was unable to knock down the rock-jawed Velasquez, who showed plenty of heart and earned kudos for his toughness in the defeat.

Akhmadaliev needs a bigger test and the best fight could be made with the winner of next Saturday's Brandon Figueroa-Stephen Fulton fight, which would leave two titles with the victor and two with Akhmadaliev.

The other fight was shaping up to be a good one between Julio Cesar Martinez and McWilliams Arroyo for the WBC flyweight title held by Martinez before a clash of heads in the second round caused the fight to end in a no contest before the beginning of round three.

Both fighters scored knockdowns in the first round and Martinez scored another in the second round with Arroyo also scoring well in the round

The head clash caused two separate cuts on the eyelid of Arroyo and when Arroyo told the doctor that he couldn't see the fight was stopped immediately.

It seemed like Arroyo could have continued and now it will be up to the WBC to decide if a rematch is needed or not.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica scored three points to my two to move the boxing challenge to 149-132 in my favor.

Boxing Challenge: Pacquiao dethrones Thurman

As I was away for the weekend, I haven't watched all of the Boxing Challenge fights, so I'll spend this time writing about what I have seen and will try to watch the others with an update soon.

In the main fight of the weekend (I have not seen the remainder of the card), Manny Pacquiao controlled the fight from the get-go when he scored a knockdown in round one and took Keith Thurman's WBA welterweight title by a split decision that was never that close.
Pacquiao's first-round knockdown didn't severely hurt Thurman, but what it did was establish that the naturally smaller Pacquiao had the type of power that Thurman, who had been hurt in fights by fighters that weren't huge punchers in the past, was going to have to respect and deal with.
I can't believe someone actually thought Thurman won this fight (Glenn Feldman scored a Thurman a 114-113 winner) as it was a competitive fight throughout, but one fighter clearly controlled the action.
I scored Pacquiao a 116-111 victor (8-4 and a knockdown) and for him, he could face the winner of September's IBF-WBC unification fight between Errol Spence and Shawn Porter early next year or perhaps that rematch with Floyd Mayweather (I hope not).

Also on Saturday, DAZN was on tap with a London card with Dillian Whyte against Oscar Rivas in a heavyweight eliminator. Haven't seen the Whyte victory yet, but I did see the other bout where heavyweight Dereck Chisora brutally knocked former title challenger Artur Splilka out in the second round.
Chisora isn't quite of title stock level, but he'll give anyone a tough scrap and when matched properly he advances from tough out to winning those exciting fights.

Friday night and ESPN+ was the provider for two IBF title eliminators that saw two promising young fighters move on for a title chance and left another fighting for his life.
In the main event, Teofimo Lopez earned a title fight with IBF lightweight champion Richard Commey with a unanimous decision win over Masayoshi Nakatani.
Lopez was forced to finish the scheduled distance for the first time in his career and seemed to lack the explosiveness that his career has seen thus far.
Watching the fight, the first thing that leaped out at me was the physical advantage that Nakatani had against Lopez.
At six feet tall and longer armed, Nakatani was able to keep Lopez on the outside and negated his power a bit, but even still, Lopez won the fight on my card going away at 118-110 and it shows how highly he is thought of as a prospect when you are a bit disappointed over a fight that a prospect won 10 of 12 rounds.
Going the distance is part of the maturation process for a prospect turning into a contender, but it always adds at least a little bit of thought of the possible flaws of the fighter.
The answers will begin to arrive in a fight against Commey for his IBF title, who could very well be undefeated as well, with both of his defeats coming via split decision.

The other eliminator saw Puerto Rico's Subriel Matias defeat Maxim Dadashev when Dadashev could not answer the bell for the final round when Dadashev's trainer Buddy McGirt stopped the fight.
Dadashev was well behind on the judge's scorecards ( and mine 107-102) and Matias was landing the harder punches throughout a grinding bout that saw both land plenty of hard punches.
It seemed senseless for Dadashev to continue considering that Matias had won the previous rounds and Dadashev had little chance of a final round stoppage, so the mercy ending made sense, but then Dadashev had to be helped from the ring, almost collapsed on his way to the locker room and was rushed to the hospital, where he would eventually undergo brain surgery.
Full wishes for a recovery to Dadashev, whos career is almost certainly over, but for Matias, he looks to be a very talented young fighter that will be an underdog to the winner of the Regis Prograis-Josh Taylor unification fight (Taylor is the current IBF champion), but brings the type of talent that won't be simply a walkover for either champion.

Thursday's offering was brought to you from Golden Boy on RingTV.com and some regional sports networks and GBP might have wished they did not offer that in hindsight as their middleweight prospect from Ireland, Jason Quigley was unable to keep veteran Tureano Johnson off of him and was overwhelmed by the former title challenger's aggressiveness with the result being Quigley's corner stopping the fight after the ninth round.
Johnson entered the fight with questions after a physical shellacking against Sergey Dereyvanchenko and a listless draw versus 26-13 Fernando Castaneda, but he was his old buzzsaw self against Quigley and re-established himself as at least a top 10-15 contender in the division.
As for Quigley, this pounding now raises questions about his future and should he have one, he'll need a few softballs to rebuild any confidence that he has remaining after this fight.

In the boxing challenge for the week (Including the fights I'll write about later time permitting), I outscored Ramon Malpica 12-9.

My points: Two each from: Manny Pacquiao, Dillian Whyte, Yordanis Ugas, Luis Nery, Caleb Plant,
                   One                 : Teofimo Lopez, Dereck Chisora

Ramon's:    Two each from: Caleb Plant, Luis Nery, Subriel Matias.
                   One                 : Dillian Whyte, Teofimo Lopez

The standings are currently in my favor at: 191-170