Boxing Challenge: Ortiz returns

   Two Friday main events in the boxing challenge saw interesting bouts with contender Jamaine Ortiz dropping late replacement Cristian Mino four times before the fight was mercifully stopped in round four.

Ortiz vowed before the fight that he was going to scrap the boxing style that allowed him to fight close fights with Vasyl Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez and planned to make more exciting fights.

Ortiz lived up to those statements against Mino but time will tell if Ortiz actually exchanges toe to toe with the best in the division or how effectively he will be in such swaps.

Earlier in the day from Belfast, Northern Ireland, junior welterweight Robbie Davies narrowly defeated Javier Fortuna in a ten-rounder filled with sloppy exchanges and physicality without lots of punches landed.

Fortuna scored the only knockdown with under a minute in the tenth round but Davies would survive until the final bell.

In the ridiculous English system that has only the referee judging the fight in a non-title event, Davies was judged the winner 95-94.

I scored Fortuna the winner 95-94.

Boxing Challenge

Ramon Malpica : 151 Pts (2)

TRS: 147 Pts (2)

Vince Samano: 91 Pts (3) 

 

Boxing Challenge: Garcia Stops Fortuna

      Ryan Garcia was noticeably larger than Javier Fortuna at the first visual glance of the two and he fought like the bigger man as he rarely allowed Fortuna to attack, let alone land a punch.

And when Garcia landed punches, he was the much bigger puncher as he dropped Fortuna three times with left hooks, once in round four, another in round five, and the final in round six, which ended the fight in Garcia's favor.

Garcia's win was impressive but I'm not quite as impressed as many seem to be by the victory as while Fortuna is a solid contender, he has never succeeded against the elite of any division, and Fortuna is naturally a junior lightweight with Garcia moving north in weight.

Every time that Garcia landed solidly, you could see that Fortuna was badly outgunned and when Garcia scored the first knockdown in the fourth round, the outcome was decided, only when the fight would end was in question.

Fortuna was resigned to occasional fruitless lunges to attempt to get to Garcia but was punished with each attempt by Garcia consistently landing the left hook that would score the three knockdowns.

Garcia called out Gervonta Davis for a fight that many will anticipate and just as many would be surprised if the network issues (Garcia DAZN and Davis Showtime) could be straightened out in order to make the fight.

Garcia also said that he preferred to stay in the junior welterweight division and challenged Davis to fight him at that weight.

That would be an advantage for Garcia as the naturally larger man as Davis doesn't really have the frame to move much higher than 140 pounds.

A Garcia-Davis fight carries lots of intrigue as both fighters have one-shot knockout power.

Neither has faced the best competition yet with Garcia's best win over long-time top ten lightweight Luke Campbell with Davis's best win over Jose Pedraza years ago.

I think Davis has the better chin from what we have seen thus far but style-wise, Garcia may have the edge with the smaller Davis having to attack the lanky Garcia in the same manner as Javier Fortuna unsuccessfully tried last night.

I'd love to see this one signed and in the ring before the end of the year but I will believe it when I see it.

Boxing Challenge

TRS: 131 Pts (2)

Ramon Malpica: 111 Pts (3)

Vince Samano: 107 Pts (1)

Boxing Challenge: Ramirez, Diaz win in Los Angeles

   The Golden Boy card from DAZN couldn't have turned out better for a company that is still fighting its way off the ropes from the loss of Canelo Alvarez and the recent mental health issues of Ryan Garcia.

The Oscar De La Hoya-led company not only received the spectacular win that they needed from their newest addition Gilberto Ramirez, but they won a fight that they weren't guaranteed to win with a unanimous decision from Joseph Diaz.

In the main event, Ramirez dominated an apparently close to the end of the line Sullivan Barrera and took the air out the 39 year old Cuban with body blows that Barrera was unable to take as Ramirez scored a fourth-round knockout.

The fight was essentially over the third when Ramirez realized that every time that he hit Barrera to the body, Barrera couldn't shrug them off and late in the third scored a knockdown on a body blow.

Ramirez, who hasn't always been a fabulous finisher in the past, showed signs of development as he continued to crack Barrera to the body in the fourth, scoring two more knockdowns before the fight was mercifully ended.

For Ramirez, it's the type of win that could set him up for a challenge of WBA champion Dmitry Bivol and to win against a well-known opponent in an exciting manner, which hasn't always been the case for Ramirez, is very encouraging for boxing fans that want to see that fight.

As for Barrera, this loss is now his third in four fights and he continues to slide down the light heavyweight food chain as this loss will likely move him from fringe contender to gatekeeper or perhaps even trialhorse status.

The co-feature was an entertaining lightweight bout for a WBC minor title, but more importantly, would position the winner for a shot at WBC champion Devin Haney or a big name and perhaps payday in Ryan Garcia.

Former IBF junior lightweight champion Joseph Diaz took the fight on somewhat short notice when Garcia claimed mental illness as a reason to drop out of his mandated fight against Javier Fortuna and claimed he would be stronger at the higher weight after dropping his IBF title on the scales for missing weight.

Diaz's claims turned out to be true for this fight as he survived a questionable point deduction and a headbutt that opened a slice along his left eye to dominate the second half of the fight to win a unanimous decision over Fortuna.

Diaz was far more efficient (landing more while throwing less) than Fortuna and after falling behind on my card early, his work took command, and Diaz, never known as more than average hitter at 126 and 130 pounds, appeared to have hurt Fortuna in the tenth although the veteran rode out the storm.

Diaz now is the mandated fight for Devin Haney's WBC belt, although an in-house Ryan Garcia fight could pay more and be a more valuable win should he emerge with the win.

As for Fortuna, he fought well enough to remain in the top ten picture, but with the championships residing with Teofimo Lopez and Top Rank, Fortuna may have seen his final title opportunity go by the wayside.

In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored two points to move the total to 98-89 in my favor.

Back later, with some tributes to recent passing from the sports world. 

Boxing Challenge: PBC and Boxing Notes

Finishing up the boxing challenge from the weekend from the PBC in Oxon Hill, Maryland, where both favorites notched impressive victories.

Former minor junior lightweight champion Javier Fortuna demolished former minor featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar in only two rounds in a lightweight bout.
Fortuna knocked Cuellar down near the end of the first round and might have finished him then and there, but the bell delayed the ending until the following round when two additional knockdowns ended the fight.
Cuellar looks to be near the end of the line, while Fortuna might be an opponent for Gervonta Davis after Davis dispatches Yuriorkis Gamboa as he is expected to do in December.

Junior middleweight Brian Castano bounced back from his draw with Erislandy Lara with a TKO win over Wale Omotoso when Omotoso couldn't continue at the end of the fifth round due to a shoulder injury, I thought Castano won all five rounds, but Omotoso did fire back and land enough to make it interesting.
Omotoso will likely return to undercards, while Castano could still be in the mix at junior middleweight considering the depth of the PBC at the 154 pound division against WBA /IBF champion Julian Williams, Erislandy Lara in a rematch, the winner of the WBC title rematch between Tony Harrison and Jermell Charlo or possibly Jarrett Hurd, should he decide to stay in the division.

The WBC is well on its way to replacing the WBA as the most ridiculous sanctioning body (although knowing the WBA, I'm sure that it won't take long for them to say "Hold my beer".) as they use clever names that sound prestigious for their "world" such as silver, diamond, etc compared to the WBA's super (the real champion), regular and interim titles.
In any case, there should only be one champion for each sanctioning body and the minor titles?
Well, there used to be this thing called being the number one contender that if they held a title at all, it was a regional title that held importance such as the NABF, USBA and the European championships.

However, the latest WBC title takes the cake and will result in even fewer unified champions.
The WBC's recent decision to create something called their "franchise" champion strains the term for ridiculous and it's a stain on boxing.
The first fighter that was given this was Canelo Alvarez and minor beltholder Jermall Charlo was elevated to the full championship.
Next up was Vasyl Lomachenko, who had made unifying all four titles at lightweight his goal and went out of his way to make a fight with Luke Campbell for the vacant WBC title to grab the third title that he needed.
Shortly thereafter, Lomachenko is stripped of the 'real' WBC title, it gets handed to Devin Haney and as a result, after next spring when Lomachenko fights the Richard Commey-Teofimo Lopez winner, that winner will have three titles when they could have four.
The franchise champion is not only a scam to create more titles and lessen the odds of a fully unified four-belt champion, but it's also a money-making scam.
In the case of Lomachenko, they'll continue to receive sanctioning fees for "franchise" defenses, which is even stupider when you consider that franchise champions cannot lose their title designation even with a loss and they can milk said fees from Devin Haney's title defenses!
What I'd really like to see is for Lomachenko to tell the WBC to shove their franchise belt and state this- I won your real title, I don't want this made-up title just for you to keep your hands in my pocket, give me the title I won in the ring or I won't be participating in these fights.
AKA- I'm not giving you money to sanction something meaningless.
It's the only way to make this silliness go away.

DAZN started the Kovalev-Alvarez fight after 1 o'clock in the morning after an agreement with UFC boss Dana White to not have the UFC event run at the same time as the Canelo fight.
While I understand the reasoning behind the decision for both sides, the question that I would ask is this- IF you did not want to make the audience choose or you didn't really care about the audience being able to watch both events, Why did one or the other insist on running on the same date?
This hasn't bothered promoters before, why the sudden concern?
When I arrived at the road office and began to watch the DAZN coverage, I was there for two hours and forty-five minutes and watched the one round of Ryan Garcia vs Romero Duno before the start of the main event.
I understand not wanting to lose viewers from either side and DAZN has claimed to gain subscribers from the tactic, but that could be a short-term victory.
I understand working with another entity to help both sides, but couldn't DAZN either start earlier and have Canelo's fight before the UFC card or put Canelo-Kovalev in the middle of the card at least?
It's not a good move to have the games biggest start fighting at 1:30 in the morning and hopefully, DAZN takes their money (subscribers), runs, and does not do anything like this again.

As for Canelo Alvarez, who may not be the best fighter in the world, but certainly is boxing's biggest draw and star. it is interesting to think of what's next for the two-division (nope not counting his minor title at 168) champion and has he boxed himself into a corner with all the fighters that he has ruled out facing.

I have my doubts that Canelo stays at light heavyweight to defend the WBO title that he won from Sergey Kovalev.
Kovalev had fought a mandatory (Anthony Yarde) before his fight with Canelo, so Canelo wouldn't have to fight a mandatory challenger right away, although his mandatory would be fellow Mexican Gilberto Ramirez, who has yet to fight at light heavyweight, but used the WBO rule that a champion of theirs that vacates a title to move up in weight will automatically become the number one contender in their new division.
Oleksandr Usyk has used this rule to be the heavyweight mandatory and Terence Crawford has used this rule twice in his career, so it's not created for Ramirez.
Canelo-Ramirez would be a strong draw for the Latino audience and it might be able to be made, although who knows what Canelo will want to do if it's made, it will be a draw.
I could see Canelo fighting Ramirez, even with Ramirez fighting for Top Rank, and I can see him fighting WBA champion Dmitry Bivol, who is a promotional free agent, isn't a huge puncher or an especially big light heavyweight, but as much as I would love to see it, I see no chance that Canelo steps into the ring with WBC and IBF champion Artur Beterbiev, who like Gilberto Ramirez is promoted by Top Rank.
Canelo will fight GGG two more times before he fights that wrecking ball!

The natural fight would be Gennady Golovkin for the third time, but Alvarez insists that GGG brings nothing to the table that interests him.
I disagree but assuming that is actually the case, who would offer anything for him?
If Alvarez's stance of not fighting Golovkin for the third time is firm, the other fight that would make sense would be WBA super middleweight champion, Callum Smith.
Smith has the real WBA title, won the World Boxing Super Series last year, and comes with a built-in backstory since Canelo knocked out Callum's brother Liam in 2016.
Canelo vs Smith makes sense and could be an entertaining fight, but Canelo would be favored.

The three other champions at super middleweight don't seem likely for Alvarez either.
WBC champion David Benavidez and IBF kingpin Caleb Plant are promoted by PBC and off the table and while WBO boss Billy Joe Saunders is with DAZN through Matchroom, Saunders is a lighter Tyson Fury as he outboxes, frustrates and confuses opponents.
Saunders won't bring a lot of notice, likely will make a less than exciting fight and I'd rate him a live dog to pull a massive upset.
Add all of those factors up and I'd rate Saunders a long shot to land a Canelo fight.

Canelo could drop all the back to 160, but I'm not sure who is there either that he'll be interested in fighting.
Alvarez says IBF champion Gennady Golovkin and WBO titleholder Demetrius Andrade hold next to no interest for him, WBC champion Jermall Charlo is with PBC and Alvarez's minor titleholder in the WBA (Alvarez holds the main WBA belt) is Ryota Murata, who is promoted by Top Rank and would only bring interest if Canelo was willing to go to Japan.
The WBA's number one contender is Chris Eubank Jr and Eubank would be a draw in England, but not in the U.S. yet as Eubank's American debut vs Matt Korobov is on Jermall Charlo's undercard for Charlo's fight vs Dennis Hogan and likely would only fight Canelo if Canelo didn't want to lose his WBA title and was forced to fight Eubank.

So to answer the question that I asked earlier- Has Canelo boxed himself into a corner?
Maybe not, perhaps there is a freak show for big money somewhere...

Cancio stuns Machado, Davis rolls Ruiz

 (Photo: Tom Hogan-Hoganphotos/Golden Boy Promotions)

The boxing challenge looked to have two junior lightweight champions that eventually would be forced to meet in what a generous person would call a showcase bout and what a cynical one would describe as a squash match.

Quickly after WBA champion Gervonta Davis crushed Hugo Ruiz like a 7up can in breaking his nose and finishing him in one round on Showtime, that gave me time to flip to DAZN and WBA minor champion Alberto Machado's showcase against Andrew Cancio.
It looked that Machado was on his way to a one round evening as well after dropping Cancio about 25 seconds after I changed the stream.
The difference was Cancio got up, began to fight back and three rounds later, the early leader for the upset of the year was in the books as Cancio scored three knockdowns with body shots and battered a suddenly disinterested Machado before the fight was stopped.
The new champion will likely be targeted by several in the division thinking that he is an easy mark, but despite his average record, Cancio may not appear to be a long term stock to buy, but once again, the rule comes up that being thrown in tough and accumulating a few losses isn't always a bad thing before the big time comes calling.

Rey Vargas was knocked down in the second round by Franklin Manzanilla and looked vulnerable to the Salidoesque tactics of the challenger.
Those tactics soon would backfire with two different point reductions that canceled out the knockdowns over the course of the fight and Vargas did what he does-control from the outside and delivered a solid, but unspectacular effort to win going away by unanimous decision to retain his WBC junior featherweight title.
I had Vargas winning 117-111, which was pretty close to the official score.
I have hope that the winner of the WBA-IBF unification fight at the weight between Daniel Roman and T.J Doheny on DAZN could be convinced to unify further against Vargas, who isn't proving a lot with his defenses against lesser contenders.

Joseph Diaz dominated neighborhood rival and childhood friend Charles Huerta in winning every round on my round and winning an easy unanimous decision.
Huerta did his best, but this is the difference between a world-class competitor and an average ten round fighter.

On Showtime, the main event did see Gervonta Davis do what you expect someone of his talent to do when facing an undermanned, outgunned late substitute when he smacked Hugo Ruiz around for a round before blowing him out like a baseball bat going through the bottom of a paper cup.
The problem is that Ruiz was the first fight in ten months for Davis after fighting just once last year and doesn't appear to have any peers in his division capable of giving him a hard fight other than WBC champ Miguel Berchelt, who is not with PBC.
Davis could move to lightweight after trouble making weight for Ruiz, but the picture isn't any better there with WBA/WBO lightweight champ Vasyl Lomachenko and IBF champ Richard Commey having agreements to fight on ESPN through their promoters.
WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia would be a very attractive fight and one easy to make, depending on the outcome of Garcia's fight with Errol Spence next month.
Other than Garcia, I just don't see Davis having a fight to be excited about for quite a while.

Lightweight Javier Fortuna slogged his way to a unanimous decision win over Sharif Bogere in a sloppy mix of styles that could be considered ill-advised matchmaking.
Fortuna did score a borderline knockdown in the sixth, but the rest of the bout had so much headbutting, wrestling and grappling that I expected Mr.Wrestling II to kneelift both these guys out of the ring.
My card agreed with all three judges 96-93 Fortuna.

Erickson Lubin showed his power in driving former junior middleweight champion (albeit six years ago and lost in his first defense to the long forgotten Carlos Molina) Ishe Smith into retirement with four knockdowns in three rounds before the fight was stopped in the corner after the third.
The intrigue here was could Lubin stop the never before stopped Smith before Smith tested the china chin of Lubin.
Lubin landed first and showed the huge power that he possesses in crushing Smith as never before.
Lubin reminds me a lot of former junior middleweight and middleweight champion and 2019 Hall of Fame Inductee Julian Jackson.
Few in the game had the power of Jackson (Lubin) and Jackson (Lubin) can take anyone out that they hit squarely and conversely anyone that hits them (Jackson/Lubin) has the ability to take them out with chins that describing as questionable would be a very positive assessment to say on anyone's part.
Erickson Lubin will continue to be almost mandatory watching because the ending will likely be exciting and unpredictable.

In the boxing challenge Ramon Malpica and I each scored nine points and remain tied at 29.

Spence squashes Ocampo

Errol Spence was having some trouble with unheralded challenger Carlos Ocampo, who looked stronger than expected and was landing on Spence.
That "trouble" ended with one second in round one with a body punch that sent Ocampo to the floor for the duration and sent Spence to the second successful defense of his IBF welterweight title.

Not much else can be added other than Spence has disposed of his mandatory obligations for a while and hopefully, he can go onto better things.
The fight that the fans want to see is Spence against newly anointed WBO champion Terence Crawford, but we are most likely to see Spence against the winner of the vacant WBC title bout between Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter and then PBC will likely attempt to build to a Spence vs inactive WBA champ Keith Thurman before they even consider Crawford.

Danny Roman defended his WBA junior featherweight title with a clear unanimous decision over Moises Flores.
Flores, who didn't make weight, couldn't take advantage of his huge height advantage and Roman shrugged off any offense from Flores as he walked Flores down and simply was far more aggressive along with being effective.
I scored Roman a 119-109 winner and Roman impresses me more each time that I see him.
I have a feeling that Roman would be a tough out for either WBC champion Rey Vargas or WBO titleist Issac Dogboe and both of those bouts could be quite interesting.

In the first encounter of the season, junior welterweights Adrian Granados and Javier Fortuna were just warming up in the fourth round when Fortuna went tumbling through the ropes and appeared to hit his head on the side of the camera well.
Fortuna was declared unable to continue and since Texas rules require four complete rounds to go to the scorecards (there were only seconds remaining), the bout was ruled a no contest.
It was unfortunate as the third and fourth rounds featured some pretty strong action and although it seemed to me that Granados was in the starting stages of breaking down Fortuna, I think we would have seen some strong exchanges as we reached that point.

In the Boxing Challenge, I added four points to Ramon Malpica's two to extend my lead to 101-80.
I added four points for the wins by Errol Spence and Danny Roman, while Ramon earned two points from Errol Spence, but Ramon selected Moises Flores to win.

Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers out there!
I plan on the next post to clean the inbox a bit.

Boxing Challenge: Spence Stops Peterson!

Photo Credit: Frank Franklin-AP Photo

The 2018 Boxing Challenge raced out of the starting blocks with arguably the next big star in boxing as Errol Spence retained his IBF welterweight title when Lamont Peterson's corner refused to allow their gallant warrior to answer the bell for the start of the eighth round.

Spence won every round, knocked Peterson down in the fifth round, walked through some decent right hands from Peterson and generally made a solid top ten welterweight look like he was one step away from retirement.
It was exactly the type of performance Spence needed to deliver and he came through with flying colors.
I also enjoyed the post-fight interview where Spence called out the usually reluctant Keith Thurman as "Some Time".
Spence tweeted this morning as having a next fight date set already, so perhaps Spence is beginning to set the tone for his career by actually demand that PBC make fights for him, which would be a good thing for Spence and for boxing fans who would love to see more of him in the ring.

In the co-feature, Robert Easter defeated Javier Fortuna via split decision in a fight that likely saw Easter lose a little luster.
The much shorter Fortuna moving up in weight ( having won minor titles at 126 and 130 ) pressed the action, forced Easter to be unable to use his reach and not be able to box from the outside.
The referee took a point away from Fortuna in the second round (which seemed very early to be taking points away to me) for holding and hitting and that decision cost Fortuna a draw on the judge's card.
Fortuna swept the final four rounds on my card and I had him winning 115-112, but it was hard for me to summon too much sympathy for a guy that has lost a title on the scales in the past (at a weight NINE pounds lower), so I won't be crying too much for Fortuna.

In the challenge. I added three points (2 for Spence,1 for Easter) to Ramon Malpica's two (1 for each win) to start the 2018 challenge.

Tune in tomorrow night for Fightheads for Ramon and me's thoughts on Errol Spence, Robert Easter, and this weekend's three fights .